


They Left His Arm

by BastardCrimes



Series: The Ghouls Are Alright [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: A whole lot of ghouls being soft headcanons, Eventual Romance, Fix it AU, Ghoul Instincts, Hide has a face, Hurt/Comfort, In this au Yoshimura is still alive and Takizawa has Oomori’s kagune, Kaneki is fine AU, Koma no one cares that you were the devil ape, M/M, Michie Takizawa is alive and she’s the most valid parent in this shit, Multi, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture Recovery, Yoshimura is everyone’s dad whether they like it or not, fuck dr kanou all my homies hate dr kanou, ghoul culture, ghoul headcanons, hideyoshi is a good friend, identity crisis, kanae is a trans man (only shows up for a second but he is STILL VALID), seidou’s dad sucked, takizawa gets a happy ending au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29058393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BastardCrimes/pseuds/BastardCrimes
Summary: An AU where everyone is safe at anteiku and Takizawa is saved from Aogiri tree. He’s unsure what he is or how to survive becoming a ghoul, but this time he has Kaneki and the others to help guide him. Being the second One eyed ghoul they’ve helped, they know more about how to help, but unfortunately for everyone, there’s no protocol for this
Relationships: Amon Koutarou/Mado Akira, Amon Koutarou/Takizawa Seidou, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Nagachika Hideyoshi, Mado Akira/Takizawa Seidou
Series: The Ghouls Are Alright [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131890
Comments: 19
Kudos: 61





	1. Alive and Unwell

**Author's Note:**

> This first Chapter’s pretty dark, it gets better but first I gotta slap seidou around a little

When Takizawa went missing during a raid on aogiri, he was counted with the dead. The CCG sent his parents some money for the funeral, and his coworkers attended. Apologies were given to his mother, a few words were said by Amon, and Hide lingered the next few days at the lunch table he used to sit at with him whenever they were on break. It’s just what happens when you work to rid the world of ghouls, it’s just the sacrifices those brave people make. It would have been easier if death was the case, it would have hurt his friends and family, but it would have been expected.

But Takizawa is alive in a horrible state.

And for some reason. Some lucky, terrible, heavenly reason, his friend thought to consider it. For some reason, Hideyoshi went to ask the manager at the local cafe if there was any way he might still be alive. The CCG never found his body after all, and if he’d been eaten, why would the ghouls leave behind his arm?

——————————

Curled in the corner of a filthy room, wrapped in the single ratty blanket that served as any shelter, the man wept silently. The concrete walls and floor were stained with blood, both his and countless others, the most recent stains in the middle of the floor. He makes a little whimper, then swallows hard to silence it, any noise could goad his captors into adding to his suffering, Dr. Kanou had them coming in at all hours to keep him on his toes. It’s been… how long has it been since he woke up in this hell? How long has it been since “starting today, you are a ghoul?” There was no way to keep track of time in this rot-smelling room, there was no way to focus on anything but pain and discomfort. 

Seidou clutched at his belly, not yet fully healed closed. The doctor used a chainsaw, a  _ fucking chainsaw.  _ It was all a blur, he couldn’t remember how he managed to drag himself from that spot in the middle of the room to the corner he slept in. The sound of footsteps passing the locked door made him bite his own tongue to stop another pitiful noise.  _ I can’t do it I can't do it I can’t take this anymore  _ His mind screamed, his eyes burning with tears at the thought of someone coming in right now and kicking him around. What he wanted, what he needed, didn’t matter to these people. The man’s Crying and begging for any mercy was never acknowledged, the doctor always kept going. He was never shown any humanity…. Why would he be? These people aren’t humans,  _ now neither is he _ . 

Takizawa used to fantasize about escape, about running away and going home, he wanted nothing more than to see his mom again. That was  _ some  _ amount of time ago, but he’s since learned three things. There is no escape, what he wants doesn’t matter, and even if he got out of here, his family would be horrified by him. A shudder wracks his body, forcing him to whine with pain. It says something about how he’s been treated that being cut open with a chainsaw wasn’t the worst he’s been through, at least this time it wasn’t his eyes or his genitals, even though they grew back quicker those always hurt the most. At least this time he’d been left alone once it was done, it was always harder when they demanded he release his kagune to test his new rc pathways. At least this time he could drag his living corpse to the blanket.

But this time, they’d also forced chunks of meat into his mouth, then held his jaw shut until he swallowed. He didn’t want to think about it,  _ he didn’t want to think about it _ . But he thought about it. It may have been someone he worked with. Seidou prayed to whatever was listening that the human they made him eat was a terrible person with no one who would miss them, the idea that his barely grown back stomach was filled with someone’s family member made him want to throw up, though he couldn’t if he tried. His arms were too weak to make himself puke, and this awful thing that used to be  _ his  _ body was gleefully digesting it. He swallowed, mouth dry besides his own bleeding gums. Whatever punishment asking for water would bring him wasn’t worth it.

It’s the little things he lets himself dream about now. The half-ghoul wishes for a glass of water, for a meal that wasn’t human, for the glaring lights to turn down, for privacy, for something to wear. Most of all, he wished for a  _ shower.  _ Every surface in this place is caked with blood or puke or some other bodily fluid, and so is he. The blanket and his underwear crackle when they’re dry, but they’re the only things he has to cover himself with in this cold, damp room. He wondered how much more he could take, or rather, would be  _ forced  _ to take. He’d long surpassed his threshold for pain, both emotionally and physically, humanity lost along with the countless gallons of blood splattered from him, and didn’t know what was left. If he was ever presented with a mirror again, could he look in?

Just then, the hair on the back of his neck stood up as the door opened, the sound of the metal scraping the concrete floor alerting him of someone entering. It’s futile, he knows, as he pulls the blanket tighter around him. There’s no point in playing dead now is there? He stops biting his tongue and sobs openly, hics and whines fill the bloody room as he pointlessly pleads. 

“Please...please don’t!” That’s all he has to say, just ‘don’t’, anything they could have planned is beyond intolerable, but he keeps going, no other outlet for his terror.

“Please don’t touch me... don’t hurt me! I-I haven’t healed I still can’t move it  _ hurts! Please please-!” _

The words end in a shaky sob, he really has no reason to beg, he has no dignity to preserve or way to stop them. Whoever entered the room hasn’t hurt him yet, whatever they have planned looms over him like a knife against his throat. Over his own strained crying, he barely hears a whispered voice.

“Seidou Takizawa? Are you seidou Takizawa?” The person, a woman asks, voice low. The injured man doesn’t answer, continuing to quiver as he anticipated harm. Without warning, the blanket is grabbed and ripped away, Seidou cries out in fear and shock from the sudden exposure, then continues cowering. A hand firmly grasps his jaw, yanking his head up to be examined. Unlike his other tormentors, the woman is wearing a simple green mask, as is another person standing beside her. Mind hazy with terror, pain, and adrenaline, he tries again to plead.

“Let go of me! Don’t touch me!” Seidou cried, pawing helplessly at the hand holding his face, but he is disregarded.

“Doesn’t look like him,” the woman comments flatly.

“No,” the other disagrees. “Look.” The second ghoul takes a folded paper from their jacket pocket and opens it up, showing the woman.

“Looks nothing like him, that man is blonde.”

“Are you stupid? We’re here for the other one.”

“The other one has brown hair.”

“Hair color can change! Idiot!” The ghoul turns to the wounded half-ghoul and shows him the paper.

“You. Is this you?”

It takes several seconds for Takizawa to quiet his panic just enough to reason that if he does what they want they may hurt him less, so he looks at the paper, and his blood runs cold.

It’s a picture, he remembered when it was taken. Hideyoshi had grabbed him in a headlock and taken a selfie, his smile now in the center of the printed out image of the two of them.  _ Where did they get this? _

Slowly, dreading what this meant for him and his friend, he nods. Apparently that’s what they wanted, because the woman lets go of his face, instead grabbing a radio from her belt. She pressed a button and spoke into it.

“Kanae, kanae come in.”

Another voice from the other side came through with a thick German accent.

“Did you find the mark?”

“We’ve got him, we’re on our way. He looks injured though.”

“Just knock him out and carry the thing,” the voice in the radio commanded. Seidou wasn’t sure whether to be afraid or glad that he was going to be blacked out for a little while, at least it meant he may have some time to heal before his next round of torture. He looked up at the masked ghouls with pleading eyes, what he was pleading for, he didn’t know. The woman shrugged, placed her radio back on her belt, and reared her arm back. The half-ghoul tried to curl back up, but before he could, the woman’s koukaku had been summoned, and she bashed the dull side of it against his head.

The force made the edges of his vision go white, the blow making his forehead bleed and his stomach wound flare up. He didn’t have the strength to fight back, and he slipped unceremoniously into unconsciousness. In the blackness of concussed sleep, the man could only hope that these people would give him a few seconds of peace.

————————

Seidou wakes up with a start, twitching violently as he’s torn from his rest with an aching body. He was expecting to be tied to a chair or strapped to a table somewhere in the concrete labyrinth, but instead found himself wrapped in darkness with his hands tied behind his back. Had the lights finally been shut off? Did they pluck out his eyes again? He blinked, and found that there was a blindfold over his eyes. The regular panic that thrums through him at all times restarts, heartbeat quickening and breathing shallowly. Underneath him, he feels something new against his skin, hard but not concrete. It’s more metallic, and cold, like he hadn’t been laying on it long. Had he been taken out of the room?  _ How long has it been since he left that room?  _ There’s faint voices that he can’t make out coming from the other side of a thin metal wall. One seems… familiar. The flinches when he hears a car door sliding open right in front of his face. 

“This is him, yes?” The German, Kanae he remembers, asks.

“Holy shit… yeah,” says the familiar male voice. “What  _ happened  _ to him?” A warm hand gently touches his shoulder, but Takizawa yelps and scrambles back, blindly fleeing whoever had reached for him. 

“Don’t know. Had my people knock him out. You said he was human but that doesn’t look right. Were you testing us or did you not know?”

“I…  _ what?  _ He works for the  _ ccg!  _ How is he not human?”

“Don’t know. Doesn’t matter to me. As long as you pay Mr. Tsukiyama what he was promised he’s yours.”

Payment? Mr. Tsukiyama? Who is this? The uncertainty made him even more afraid of these faceless people’s intentions.

“Uh-yeah, here.” The cowering man hears the sound of a plastic bag rustling as it’s passed to Kanae.

“Very well, take him.”

“Thank you sir! Tell Shuu I said thanks!”

The care shakes as the familiar man climbs into it, but that familiarity alone isn’t enough to quell Takizawa’s terror. He pulled his knees to his chest and turned his face to the side, pushing himself against the wall to make himself small.

“Please don’t hurt me… please…” he whispered, begging pointlessly with shaking breaths.

“Seidou… it’s me,” the voice speaks softly. “I’m gonna take off your blindfold.”

The half-ghoul whimpers when he feels the knot being undone, his eyes are wide as it’s slid off, and his vision refocuses to see the boy in front of him.

Of all the people he’d idolized as noble, all the investigators he thought could save him, the idiot he ate lunch with was never one of them. He blinked several times in disbelief, at first thinking this was some pain induced hallucination, but realizing that he’s really here.

“ _ Hideyoshi?”  _

The blonde smiled at the recognition.

“Seidou!” He shouted, hugging him excitedly despite the filth he was covered in. That act of affection made the half-ghoul yelp. Though  _ he  _ may know that this is his friend, he’d gotten too used to violence. The human must have noticed his misplaced fear, because he let go of him.

“Sorry! I got excited, you uh, yeah I don’t know what happened to you but I’m going to help and…” some recognition in his eyes makes Seidou feel that pang in his chest. He’d imagined how his friends and family would react when they saw that he was no longer human, and now the first person he’d seen in ages of suffering saw. He braced himself for disgust, he readied himself to be sent back to the bloody room he’d been taken from, but never anticipated…

“You’ve got a kakugan, okay, I think I understand. I know a place where you’ll be safe.”

The bloodied man feels more tears welling up.

“I-I didn’t want this, they don’t care what I want, they made me into this I swear I didn’t want thi-“

“I know, I know, listen,” the blonde isn’t sure how to comfort him, but tries his best.

“I thought you might be alive so I and… some guys I know, paid some people to find you and look! You’re alive! Aogiri tree is probably pretty pissed that we stole you so we need to get you inside, and I can explain later. But I’m not going to let them have you back okay? Do you get that?”

Takizawa nodded meekly, though he didn’t believe that the human could protect him, let alone that there was even a  _ chance  _ that he’d escaped Dr. Kanou, he was used to going along with what was asked of him. 

“...I have a boyfriend, he’s like you, used to be human,” Nagachika informs. The half-ghoul is taken aback. The doctor said that there were others like him, he mentioned a ‘Kaneki’ when he was torturing him, could that be it?

Was Hide really able to help him? At that moment, he didn’t care. Anything anyone could do for him he would accept, after the hell he’s been through a glass of water would seem like salvation, and now he was offered safety. That word rang through his mind, _safety,_ when was the last time he felt safe? When was the last time he wasn’t in pain? Nothing made sense, nothing about his work friend being a part of some ghoul cabal saving him from another ghoul cabal checked out, but it was _something._ He wanted safety, he wanted freedom from pain, he wanted to see his loved ones again.

He wanted a fucking shower.

“I… trust you,” Seidou whispered, his friend smiled again.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, can I untie your hands?” 

The half ghoul nods, trying to keep himself from flinching again as his friend unties the rope keeping his hands behind his back. Once they’re untied, the human grabs something and puts it over his shoulders, that ratty blanket. His captors must have brought it with them to cover him.

“You can borrow my clothes when we get up there, my apartment's on the second floor. Can you walk?” Hide asks. Seidou feels his belly, there’s only irritated red skin where the wound used to be.

“I can.”

“Let’s go then,” he offers a hand to help him up. The half-ghoul is slow to take it, having been trained by his captors that any touch meant pain, but too confused and desperate for a semblance of familiarity to deny it. He let his friend lead him, trembling and clutching at the dirty blanket around him, out of the van. It sped away the moment they were out, and Hide brought him to the building they were by. Walking so much felt weird, in the concrete room the most he’d done was pace around or writhe in pain, so the stairs were almost alien. When they arrived at the human’s apartment, he opened the door and brought the blanket-wrapped man inside before locking it.

_ Warmth _ , he’d forgotten how cold he was. Seidou looked around, gaze darting like a frightened animal, between normal household appliances. A couch, a chair, a table, this shitty little apartment seemed decadent after his capture. What used to be normal seemed opulent, like he didn’t deserve this. It didn’t feel familiar anymore though, he was a monster in a place for humans.

“Bathroom’s over there,” Hide points to a door. “You look… pretty beat up, do you want help washing up?”

“No!” Takizawa barks. Privacy privacy  _ privacy.  _ Every hour of every day someone had their hands on him, taking him apart, striking him, and if a hug is enough to bring him back to that, he doesn’t know what Hide helping him would do. Besides… maybe he could get some dignity back, he was remembering to be embarrassed that he was mostly naked, and the underwear he  _ was  _ wearing was absolutely blood soaked .

“Alright man, I’ll get you some clothes, go get washed up.” That was all the permission the half-ghoul needed, he stumbled to the door, rushing it and locking it behind him, then lingered with his hand on the lock. He tests the doorknob, the lock works. He’s alone. He’s in  _ control  _ of being alone.

No one can touch him, he’s safe.

Seidou tries to slow his breathing, he  _ knows  _ the boy who’s apartment he’s in is a friend, so much so that he got involved with ghouls to save him. He knows this, yet just being able to force a barrier between him and the world was the most comforting thing he’d felt in god knows how long. Confident that he was alone, he finally let the blanket slip to the ground, as well as his final article of clothing. Still in shock from today’s sudden freedom, he doesn’t register anything outside of his body. He can’t imagine any certainty in the future, but for now, he can get ages worth of blood and rc fluid off of him. 

Carefully, he steps into the shower, pulling the curtain closed and sitting on the floor. Takizawa is slow to act, adrenaline having no outlet but to force his hands to shake so violently that he struggles to turn on the knobs. When he does manage to turn the shower on, he gasps at the water hitting his back, but the warmth brings him out of his haze. Leaning back into the stream, letting blood and dirt and grime drip from him and down the drain, he steadily came out of shock.

He’s here, he’s safe, he’s  _ free. _ Takizawa runs his trembling hands through his hair, greasy and filled with knots. Methodically, like he used to before having his life ripped away, he went about cleaning himself as he tried to ground his mind. Massaging some pine and citrus shampoo into his scalp, he breathed deeply, focusing on the warmth from the water.  _ I’m not in that place, I’m safe, I’m okay,  _ he repeated to himself.

_ Am I? _

He rinsed the shampoo out, a clump of grey hair fell into the drain.  _ I can’t go home.  _ He took a bar of soap, and started lathering his chest.  _ I can’t go back to work.  _ He rubbed the suds over his arms.  _ I’ve eaten people _ . Now down to his legs.  _ I can’t just forget the things they did to me.  _ The mostly healed skin on his belly stung.  _ I’m not the same, I’ll never be the same. _ He rinsed himself off, the water on the floor was brackish from what came off of him.  _ I’m so scared of people touching me, I’m so scared of aogiri tree finding me again, the CCG is going to kill me too now, I… don’t belong anywhere. _

The half-ghoul remains sitting there, mind having returned just to remember that while he may be safe from the tortures inflicted upon him, everything he’d known was foreign to him now. His family, his coworker’s, they’d be  _ horrified _ . He wanted help, he  _ needed  _ help, but if anyone found out about him they’d report him and he’d die. He doesn’t know how to hunt. He can barely fight. Isn’t the CCG supposed to help people? They kill ghouls, yeah, they need to to keep people safe, but now…

Is this how all ghouls feel?

Is this what he’s been contributing to?

Seidou hugs his knees to his chest again, and rests his forehead on them, sobbing again. He wanted to blame someone. He could blame Dr. Kanou for torturing him, or the higher ups for sending him into battle. He could blame greed or pride, science or faith. He could blame ghouls for their existence, and humans for their inability to react acceptably to it. He could blame everyone for everything, or no one since everyone contributed.

He was just hurt. Alone, afraid, and hurt, and didn’t know what to do. He cried until there was nothing left, then turned off the water. Takizawa shakily stood up, stepped out of the shower, and selected a fresh towel from where a few hung on the door. Even here in a state of despair he, just a few months ago, wouldn’t have thought possible, he was grateful to be clean. His skin didn’t itch with death, his body didn’t smell like decay, and it was one thing that made him feel a little like a person again. The man hesitates, then looks into the mirror above the sink.

He barely recognizes the man looking back. His eyebrows had thinned, the eyes were ringed with dark circles, the left one a black and red kakugan. Most notably, his hair, once a chestnut brown, had gone completely grey. Seidou want to cry at how much he’s changed, but doubted he could if he tried, there was only so much moisture his body could spare. He dried himself, lingering over a scar on his shoulder where his arm had grown back, then wrapped the towel around himself. The half-ghoul grabbed the doorknob, and had to collect himself before he unlocked it, sacrificing his barrier, and opened the door.

“Hideyoshi?” He called out weakly. The blonde appeared in the hall with some clothes in his hands, that smile still there as he spoke softly.

“Hey Seidou, I got some clothes for ya,” he hands him a bundle of whatever he thought would fit.

“Are you feeling any better? I mean like not  _ good  _ obviously, but out of shock maybe?”

“Uh…. yeah, I’m just… clean now.” That's the most he can say, that’s the most important thing right now.

“Yeah! That’s a start! Well take your time to change, then the bed’s all yours. Is there anything I can do that’ll make you feel better? Even just less shitty?”

Nagachika seems unusually experienced with comforting someone who’s gone through a traumatic, ghoul-related event.

“Can you tell me… what happened?”

“Of course. Well two months ago you were in that raid on aogiri tree, and everyone thought you died.”

“They think I’m dead?” He clutched the clothes bundle tighter.

“I’m sorry man… they found your arm and assumed the worst. They even had a funeral for you, I went with Amon and Akira. Your family is… really taking it rough. They love you, we all do.”

Takizawa scoffed, he must be recovering because the audacity has returned.

“I worked for the CCG for  _ years,  _ and they threw me away.”

“The CCG is shit Sei,” Hide insists. “I mean  _ we  _ care about you, your friends and family, everyone’s going to be happy that you’re alive.”

“They  _ can’t,”  _ Takizawa’s voice cracked. “Look at me I’m… im a fucking  _ ghoul _ .”

“But you’re still Seidou!” The human states, taking the half-ghoul by surprise.

“I don’t know what those fuckers told you but you are  _ not  _ a monster. You’ve been getting messed with by aogiri tree for two  _ months  _ so obviously you’re traumatized, but you’re eventually going to be okay. I get not telling Akira or Amon but your  _ mom  _ dude, if you’d seen her at your funeral, you’d know that she’d want you home no matter what’s been done to you.”

Takizawa stares at him in shock.

“I…”

“You’re hurt, and you’ve only been safe for like two hours so it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ll be okay. I told you earlier that my boyfriend used to be human, he’s just like you, and he would tell you that it gets better too.”

“...why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you helping me? Why are you doing all this for me when I’m just…?”

“Because, Jesus Christ- because someone has to! I’m sorry it had to be me, I’m sorry no one else saved you sooner and that all that shit happened to you, because you didn’t deserve it. I hate that fucking doctor. If this happened to you then I  _ know  _ it was him. I hate that these terrible people can just  _ do things  _ and make people like you and Kaneki suffer. So can you please let me help you?”

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, seems there’s some left after all.

“O-okay.”

“I made a call while you were in the shower, there’s a group of ghouls I’m friends with that will help you, and tomorrow I’m taking you to meet them. Will you go with me?”

The thought of meeting ghouls after what he’s done to them in his time working for the CCG made him nervous, but if Hide got him this far he must know what he’s doing.

“Okay.”

“Good… I’m so sorry man, you’re gonna be okay.”

Seidou couldn’t let himself trust everything, not after the horrors he’s endured. However, a tiny glimmer of hope shone through, and it was enough to latch onto. Tomorrow he would face the ghouls he’s worked to exterminate and ask for help.

But tonight, he just wanted to sleep

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Owl’s Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoshimura gets everything in order to welcome their newest half-ghoul

Hide sat on the couch, hunched over his phone. As he talked with Yoshimura about the broken man asleep in his bed one room over, he berated himself for not doing something sooner. He was gone for  _ two months _ , and in that time something destroyed him. Now he has eyes like Kaneki’s and that same horror at the mention of Doctor Kanou, and he knew next to nothing about how that came to be. The human tells himself that he could have kept him from some of that suffering if he’d acted sooner, but instead he was just an idiot about it.

It was only at Seidou’s funeral that he put two and two together to realize that if he'd been eaten his arm would not have been left behind. It took him a week after that to broach the subject with the ghouls of anteiku. It took several more days for them to form a plan, he never would have expected Kaneki to volunteer a pint of his blood in exchange for help from the Tsukiyama family, and he shouldn’t have  _ had  _ to rely on his boyfriend to pay off that french fuck with his body sauce. There  _ had  _ to be something more he could’ve done, there had to be a point where if he’d just tried harder he would have found his friend sooner. God, Seidou looked so wrecked.

“And you’re sure he wasn’t a ghoul before?” Yoshimura asks from the phone.

“Positive,” he blonde answers as quietly as he can, not wanting to cause his friend in the other room any distress. “We ate lunch together every day, hell, he  _ killed  _ ghouls because he thought it was the right thing to do. And he’s just got that one eye like Ken’s.”

“This is… an odd predicament. What else do you know about what happened to him?”

“Only that his arm got cut off when he was human and now it’s back, that and he was in some fucked up laboratory Saw movie shit. Now… fuck man he was such an asshole before and now he gets jumpy when I move near him. There was  _ so much blood  _ on him that I didn’t even notice his  _ hair  _ went gray.”

The line is quiet for a moment before the old man speaks.

“Can you lock the room he’s in from the outside?”

“What?”

“If he's anything like Kaneki, he will have no control of his instincts if he’s hungry. For your own safety, he should be contained until we can arrive and restrain him if need be.”

“I’m not locking him in! He’s a person a-and he needs  _ help!  _ Not to be treated like shit even more-“

“Alright alright,” the ghoul hushes. “Take a breath.”

“Sir-“

“You sound like you’re panicking.”

That’s true, seeing his friend like that just made him…. he took some deep breaths as he was told, and let the old man continue.

“I’m coming over tonight, and I’m bringing Kaneki with me. I don’t want you alone with him.”

“I promise I’m going to be safe, I just want to help him.”

“Nagachika,” the man’s voice carried a forced calmness. “I don’t doubt that you’ll do everything as well as you can, you’re amazing at caring for others. My worry is that, as I and  _ everyone  _ have seen, you tend to leave yourself as an afterthought whenever someone else needs help. It’s noble of you, but even though you're not the one who’s been hurt,  _ you  _ need support as well. You’re not a burden for getting help from us, I know in a heartbeat you’d do the same for anyone.”

The human couldn’t argue with that. He did tend to… overwork himself when people were struggling. It’s not that he was a pushover, he just genuinely can’t stand seeing people suffer, and doesn’t want to drag anyone else into problems when he can just solve them himself.

“It’s like two a.m, I’m sure he won’t even wake up until noon, and Ken’s probably sleeping,” he tried to justify, but Yoshimura was having none of it.

“We’re going over and that’s final young man,” the ghoul stated firmly in his ‘single father who has killed a man’ voice.

“...yes sir.”

“Thank you for accepting this Hideyoshi. This situation is very new, But you’ve already gone above and beyond saving your friend from that place, now it’s time for us to return the several favors we owe you.”

“Alright, thank you sir.”

“It is no trouble. Until we arrive, please make sure that Takizawa doesn’t leave the apartment.”

“I don’t think he could if he tried, he’s too jumpy.”

“It’s good at least that he’s more subdued than aggressive, but still be careful.”

“I will.”

———————

It takes about an hour for the knock on his door, and the boy rushes to answer it, smiling up at the arrivals. The old man is well put together, hair neat with a scarf tucked into his jacket, while Ken had clearly just woken up. 

“Hey Ken! Hey Mr. Yoshimura, thanks so much for coming.”

“Thank you for having us,” the old ghoul said as he walked inside, a bag in hand. The younger man hugged hide.

“Hey sunshine,” Kaneki greeted tiredly. “They really found him?”

“Yeah, Kanae said he was in a weird lab.”

“So he's really…?” The brunette doesn’t need to finish the sentence. A half ghoul?  _ Like him? _

“He is. His eyes are just like yours, and he froze when I mentioned Kanou.” The human informed. Kaneki tensed at that name.

Yoshimura had gone into the kitchen and deposited something from the bag into it, a paper wrapped chunk of meat, then returned to the boys. 

“You two should sleep,” he told them. “But first, Nagachika, Mr. Takizawa has living family, right?”

“He does.”

“Do you know any of their contact information?”

Hide pauses.

“You’re not going to tell them before he can, are you?”

“If they’d be willing to accept him like this, it would be good for him. If they aren’t, which they likely won’t, I’m going to advise him to stay away from them.”

“That checks out, I still feel gross about it.”

“Understandable, but it’s in his best interest.”

The blonde hesitantly checks his phone.

“I have his mom’s number, I’ll text it to you.”

“Thank you.”

“And if you’re going to text her with this devastating news,  _ please  _ turn your caps lock off.”

“Can you show me how?” Yoshimura asked. As the human went to begin the monumental task of helping the old man put the number in his phone and turn off the caps lock, Kaneki, who was half asleep on his feet, laid down on the couch. Once Hideyoshi is done helping this man who might actually be older than color tv with his phone, the ghoul pats him on the head.

“Thanks, I’ll take care of things for now. Rest up.”

“Yes sir,” the human agreed. In all the stress of trying to help his friend, he’d ignored his exhaustion, and with someone else here to look after him it all came crashing down. He smiled at his boyfriend, asleep on the couch, and lay on it with him, foreheads touching. They’d be alright, everything will be okay, he can sleep.

While the boys drift off in each other’s arms, Yoshimura sits in a chair by a small table, and sends a text to the new half-ghoul’s mother, a woman named Michie

**Y: Is this Michie Takizawa**

He didn’t expect an answer right away, it  _ was  _ in the middle of the night, but the little circles appeared. Thinking about it, he could imagine how a parent would lose sleep after losing a child not long ago.

**M: yes. Who is this?**

**Y: I have news about your son**

**M: Who is this? Is this Marude?**

**Y: no. This is a ghoul.**

**M: whatever you’re doing just stop. Do not involve my son in your prank. Stop contacting me**

The old man felt a bit guilty about that.

**Y: my apologies, I am not used to speaking with people about this topic. This is not a prank, I will explain. Your son was captured by ghouls at Aogiri Tree and had a medical procedure done on him against his will. Details are unclear as we have only just gotten him to safety. A kakuhou was transplanted into his body and he is no longer human as you know him. He is still your son and I think he would appreciate it if you would still accept him**

He waits for a response, but she doesn’t send one, so he texts again.

**Y: he is asleep in the other room. I am texting you before we speak with him so that when he contacts you, we are prepared in case you turn him in to the CCG. I will let you know now that if that happens, they will kill him. They do not care about who a person is so long as they are a ghoul. However, if it is a risk he is willing to take, he is not trapped here and may return to you.**

**M: my son is dead. Please stop**

Yoshimura isn’t sure how to prove that the boy is alive through text, but he didn’t want to barge into the room while he was sleeping and take a picture. Instead, he slid down his jacket and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt just enough to slide out one of his kagune. He rested it on his lap, took a picture, and then retracted it. Once he neatened his clothes, he sent it.

**Y: he is sleeping so I will not wake him, but here is a picture of my kagune. I am indeed a ghoul, and am taking a risk by engaging with you. I understand that this may not be enough to convince you, so instead I’ll ask a question. If Seidou could come back to you on the condition that he was a ghoul, would you accept him or report him to be killed by the CCG?**

The dots appear several times, showing up then disappearing as the woman on the other side struggled to respond.

**M: You could’ve gotten that picture from the internet. I’ve read on Facebook about people like you ‘trolling.’ I loved my son, how dare you question that. I would do anything to have him back no matter what**

**Y: Thank you ma’am. I am truly sorry for what you are going through. I do hope that you mean what you’ve said. I will ask him to call you in the morning.**

After that there are no replies, it’s safe to assume that the poor woman was rattled. He wondered if there was any way this could end well, if she’d truly accept him for what he was turned into and keep him safe. It’s a risk, anyone could see that, but it’s not  _ impossible  _ for a human to love a ghoul. A perfect example is cuddled up on the couch, a perfect example lies in memories of his wife. Not so much his daughter…. he often wondered if there was any way he could have raised her safely, any way he could’ve kept her from becoming what she is.

Yoshimura tried not to think about her nowadays, she was one of his biggest regrets. It was irresponsible to have her, it was a mistake to leave her to be raised by people who hate humans like her mother, but he was just so blinded by his love. Maybe love that blinds will help them in this case. If he had a faith he might have prayed, but by now it was more of a dull abstract trust that sometimes maybe good things would happen. He hoped that this was one of those times.

The old man sighed and leaned back. Nothing about this situation was good, but at least there was a foundation to build on. When Kaneki had been brought to anteiku cowering and fearful, he’d been more terrified than he wanted to admit, the idea of a human with human connections suddenly becoming one of them was daunting. This time however, they had the half-ghoul who’s already had months to adjust to help them. They had experience. They had eyes in the CCG. It was just a shame that someone did this, that someone thought they had the right to steal someone’s autonomy and subject him to becoming a lab rat. He wasn’t a violent man so much anymore, at least he didn’t want to be, but if Yoshimura ever meets that doctor he’s going to turn his blood into a tasteful Jam.

He stood up and checked over the sleeping boys. It was second nature to him now to make sure everyone in the house was safe when they went to sleep, in the rooms above the cafe it was understood that they’d be wished goodnight by their manager so he can make sure they’re home and okay. The old man smiled at the pair, a little puddle of ghoul and human squished together on the little couch. 

Even in the endless clusterfuck of traumatic experiences between coffee runs that is life as a ghoul, things like this keep him grounded in reality. He can’t imagine slipping back into the cynical violence of his youth now that he knows love like this existed. Between humans and ghouls, between those who’ve seen hell and those willing to peek into it to understand, between those deeply in need of help and those who will offer it. Yoshimura couldn’t imagine the toll all this business with experimentation and carnage was having on the boy, too empathetic for his own good. Half a lifetime ago, he wouldn’t believe a bureau investigator would risk arrest to protect a person he cared about who was turned into a ghoul. More than once too.

He allowed himself just a bit of hope, just enough to think about their newest arrival being safe and cared for alone with everyone else he provided for.

“Goodnight boys,” he whispered to the sleeping couple before doing the same towards the bedroom door where Seidou slept.

“And you as well, you poor bastard.”


	3. Call Your Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang talks to Seidou, and he phones home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A phineas and ferb reference? In my hurt/comfort au? It’s more likely than you think

Kaneki whimpered in his sleep, and his heart beat too fast for someone supposed to be resting. This happened often, nightmare’s plaguing his sleep like burrowing insects that bit when he least expected it. This time he was back in the open room, feeling like he couldn’t move, only struggle helplessly as his arms and legs were secured to the chair and his eyes were covered by the blindfold. Little details changed, warped by dreariness and terror. When he was tortured, his tormentor was talking and laughing, but here there was silence, the only indication that he was not alone was the shadowy figure moving around in front of his blindfold. The figure disappeared behind him, he tried to beg for some semblance of mercy but his mouth wouldn’t form sound. His hand was grabbed, and he felt himself sobbing as the metal blades were positioned on either side of his finger. A shockwave of pain traveled up his arm, and his scream was silent.

_ 1000 _

Another finger is cut, tears dampen the cloth over his eyes.

_ 993 _

Again.

_ 986 _

_ Again. _

_ 979 _

He didn’t need to be prompted to count, the numbers were branded into his brain with the smell of meat and sound of snapping bones.  _ 972, 965, 958, 951… _

Ken awoke with a scream, clinging onto Hide as his body shook with terror, eyes darting as he took in the surroundings in his panicked state. There is no blindfold, there is no blood, he feels his fingers still attached and not in pain. 

“Ken?” Hideyoshi asked nervously, woken up by the shriek. The half-ghoul doesn’t respond, but hugs him tightly as his tear filled eyes continue to dart, as he breaks through to his foggy mind to calm himself down.  _ It isn’t real, I'm not there, he can’t hurt me.  _ It repeats over and over in his head as he ground himself in reality. The warmth of his boyfriend, the smell of the apartment, and the feeling of arms around him helped his body stop shaking. It’s familiar, and while it doesn’t erase the horror, it eases him back. One of the humans hands is gently rubbing his back. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen the effects of Kaneki’s nightmares, and it wouldn’t be the last, so he was used to being there for him.

“Nightmare?” He asks, already knowing the answer. The brunette nods, bringing one hand to his face to wipe away tears. Hideyoshi plants a kiss on his forehead, always happy to show him affection when he needs it.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he answers quickly. He preferred to just try to forget about it. They have other things to do, and focusing on it more just makes him more anxious.

“Alright, well I’m here, so are you, I love you,” the blonde assures.

“I know, I love you too….” The boy responds, steadying his breaths and letting the fear die down into a manageable anxiety. “I’m okay.”

“Good, because ghoul or not, I’m tempted to fistfight everyone who’s ever hurt you.”

Ken smiles a little.

“I know you would, you Darwin Award in the making.”

Hide returns that smile, relieved that his boyfriend was feeling better.

“Would you two like some coffee?” Asks a voice from behind them. The two flinch at the same time, then start to untangle from one another in order to sit up. Yoshimura was already awake, his old man powers of getting up early were unchanged by how little sleep he’d gotten, and he had already begun heating up water.

“Morning' Sir,” the half-ghoul greeted. “Yes please.”

“Me too,” agreed the human. “Thanks man.”

The ghoul turns the electric kettle on, puts a filter in the coffee maker, and begins scooping the grounds in. Ken perks up a bit at the smell of it in that odd way ghouls do when there’s something appetizing around. When they aren’t doing it over a corpse, it’s really quite cute. Unfortunately the endearing attentiveness fades as he smells something far less pleasant, the scent of pain and fear that was emanating from the bedroom.

“Our guest woke up around an hour ago. I’m making him some coffee before we talk to him.” Yoshimura informs.

“Oh yeah… Seidou.” The brunette stated plainly. From the smell of it, he wasn’t the only one who had nightmares. Hide was the only one in the apartment who couldn’t smell fear pheromones, he thought it was from himself since it’s so strong, but seeing as how he could sense Seidou’s from here, whatever hell he was going through was so much worse.

“I brought some meat in case he had been starved, and I can offer him coffee,” Yoshimura starts.

“Are you two awake enough to get to business?”

“I don’t want to keep him waiting, he’s probably still freaked out,” Hide suggests.

“He is,” The older man states plainly. “When I tried to open the door when he woke up, he seemed quite frightened. I left him alone, I think having another ghoul in his space now won’t be good for him. You should be the one to go in Nagachika, we will be right outside if he attacks, and he’ll likely be more willing to talk to us if he chooses to accept help for himself.”

“Makes sense,” he agrees, putting his hand in his boyfriend's hair out of habit. “He was  _ really  _ fucked up when he got here, like,  _ worse  _ than when Ken was…”

He trailed off, not needing to finish the ‘was tortured.’

“Do you think he was too?” The half-ghoul in question asks.

“Probably. If they cared about him at all he would’ve had clothes or been clean.”

Kaneki feels some nausea at the mention of that. When he was being tortured, he remembered how those little things made it so much worse. He later learns that it was on purpose, that ghouls instinctively crave small enclosed spaces, cleanliness, and warmth. That they stripped him of that to force his animal brain to tear itself apart. When he escaped, the first thing he did was scrub his skin raw and lock himself in a closet with his boyfriend. 

_ And Seidou was there for two months. _

Even now that his nightmare has ended, it’s like he can still smell Jason. And it’s been what, 4, 5 months since he got away? This poor bastard has been out for less than a day. It’s not like Kaneki was the best at ghoul things, but hell, if there was  _ anything  _ he could do with his disturbingly similar experience to help him, he needed to.

“Should we start talking to him? Or, should Hide- what should I be doing?” The boy asked his manager, who was pouring coffee. Since this was a broke college student apartment, there were only two mugs, so two of the coffees were in a measuring cup and a red solo cup.

“You,” he hands Kaneki the coffee solo cup. “Just stand bye and sit still. If Nagachika can coax Mr. Takizawa out, I’ll talk to him. The best thing you can do is answer any questions he has for you if there are anything, but besides that, just sit there and look emotionally stable. He needs to see that things get better.”

“So… lie?”

“I wish I could put you in therapy,” the old man sips coffee from a measuring cup. “But really, wouldn’t you have been comforted if there was another artificial before you to tell you that it wouldn’t always be horrible?”

He nods, taking a drink. The hot drink put some life in him, and he sat up more to put on the air of someone who knew a fraction of what they were doing.

“So should I go in?” The blonde clarifies.

“Yes,” Yoshimura decides. “Just be careful, call us if he’s aggressive, and bring him some coffee.”

“Yes sir,” he jokingly salutes, attempting to ease the tension before grabbing one of the mugs and walking to his bedroom. The two ghouls drink their own in silence, allowing their human to talk to the new arrival without distraction. Hide knocks quietly on the door.

“Hey Sei, can I come in?”

There’s no response, only some rustling.

“It’s just me, well, there’s some other people but they’re safe. You uh… you  _ smelled  _ a ghoul right? He’s not going to come in unless you say he can. We really aren’t going to do anything you don’t want us to, but can I come in to talk?” He waits for awhile for a response, and after about a minute of nervous glances between him and the two in the other room, he gets one.

“It’s just Hideyoshi?” A tiny voice came from inside. The human sighed a bit in relief.

“Yeah man it’s just me, I’ve uh, I’ve got coffee if you want some. Ghouls can drink it,” he smiled a little.

“Gotta make up for all those times we should’ve been having lunch together.”

Another hesitant pause.

“Y-you can come in.”

With that permission, the human slowly opens the door, and looks inside. The lights are off, and Seidou is nowhere to be found, so he walks in slowly as not to make any startling movements

“Are you hiding?”

“...nowhere feels safe,” came the voice from under the bed. Hide looked down, noticing that every blanket, pillow, and soft thing had been dragged under it as well. He went over to the side and sat down where he thought Seidou’s head would be in the mess of nesting materials.

“Hey there bud,” He attempts to start a conversation through a shield of pillows and blankets.

“Are you feeling…. “ well, he’s obviously not  _ okay. “ _ Are you feeling?” 

“I-I don’t know what to do,  _ I don’t know what to do,”  _ the half-ghoul stutters. 

“You could come out maybe?” Hide suggested, there was no response. 

“Or not, no pressure.”

“They didn’t  _ come  _ for me, they  _ left me there,  _ now I’m this  _ thing  _ and I don’t know what to do,” Seidou's voice broke at the end, and Hideyoshi’s heart twisted. Takizawa hurts, him hurting  _ hurts.  _

“I know… I know… I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve this. I’m going to help you, it’s okay if you don’t know what to do because I’m going to help you. Aogiri can’t find you here, there’s some ghouls in with who said they didn’t smell any other ghouls-“

“There’s ghouls here, I'm not  _ safe!  _ I could  _ smell  _ it I could smell that he was right outside and I can’t go back!”

“No one is sending you back, they’re never going to find you. Seidou,  _ fuck  _ the CCG, all my homies hate the CCG,  _ we’re  _ protecting you, not them.  _ We  _ care about you. That ghoul you smelled is my friend, even if he  _ wanted  _ to hurt you he’s old as balls and his hip would break by looking at you,” it occurs to the blonde that said old as balls man was right outside and probably heard that, but that’s a problem for a later time.

“I know it hurts, but you  _ are  _ a ghoul too now. Things are going to be… different, but what you’ve been taught about them is nothing about what they’re like. The ones that did…  _ this  _ to you, those are the worst of the worst. These are the best of the best. I promise you’re safe.”

For a minute, Hideyoshi can only sit there and wait while his friend rustled in his blanket fortress. A bit of cloth is pulled aside, and he can see one gleaming red iris in the darkness, the silver-haired man looking over him as if confirming that this was real.

“... _ why  _ do you know ghouls?”

“Because I love one.”

“And… and how have you not  _ died?” _

The human’s smile grows.

“People ask me that every single day about a lot of things. For this, I just trust them. They're not monsters, they’re just people. So are you.”

The red iris grows watery at that assurance, but Takizawa doesn’t say anything, so the blonde tries one more thing to convince him.

“Did you know my dad got eaten?” He started carefully, looking down a bit.

“I was like, seven. I barely remember him, but he was nice. He worked for the CCG and then, yeah, ghouls. Of course I was sad about it but I couldn’t help wondering how that ghoul felt. They probably hated my dad for hurting them, and they hurt him too, then ate him so they could keep living. I was  _ so sad,  _ but I didn’t hate ghouls for it, it’s just a horrible sad thing. Then I lived with the CCG for a bit, and then my dads adopted me. Then… I met Ken Kaneki.”

_ Kaneki _

Takizawa flinched.

“The doctor told me about Kaneki.”

“That he was something like you, right?”

“I was supposed to be ‘another kaneki’.”

“Makes sense… he used to be human too. We met when we were kids and fuck man, I fell in love instantly. Like nine months ago he went on a date with a girl and I thought ‘oh no! Don’t be straight you’re too sexy!’ And apparently god said the same thing because he and that girl got crushed by steel beams. Dr. Douchekanou did an emergency organ implant, he  _ said  _ it was for a kidney but  _ that _ was a fucking lie. Cause that girl was a ghoul and I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure he put her kakuhou in him on purpose because he’s a little pissbaby with a kink for medical malpractice. Anyway, now he’s a ghoul and has ghoul friends and I love the hell outta him because he’s still the boy I fell in love with. This is just the very long way of saying that I know for a fact that these people are good, and that horrible shit the doctor did to you didn’t change who you are.”

The burrowed man is stunned, but Hide hears a sniffle. Amazingly, that was what convinced the terrified man. A hand with black fingernails reached forward, followed by the other, and the pale, frail form dragged himself out. The human scooted back a bit to give him ample room where he now sat, hunched over with one of the blankets still held tightly around himself. Mussed grey hair framed the skinny face, eyes downcast as the kakugan shone.

“Hideyoshi i…  _ I’m so fucked up,”  _ he lamented, clearly unsure of what to say to convey just how deeply terrified and hurt he was.

“That’s okay, I know that I sound like the most clichè asshole saying this, but it gets better,” the boy holds out the mug.

“Do you want some coffee? Ghouls can drink it, it’s supposed to help calm them down, it’s sorta like adderall for apex predators.”

Seidou gives him a nervous look, suspicious of the action, but decides that the prospect of a single familiar luxury is worth any devious plot his friend could possibly have in store. He takes the mug and lifts it to his face, he looks at it, sniffs it, and when he decides that it doesn’t seem gross or dangerous, takes a small sip. For a few moments, he holds it in his mouth, letting the flavour and warmth spread out over his tongue, replacing the remnants of his and human blood.

It tastes good, it’s  _ right _ . A tear streaks down from his human eye as he downs the cup, drinking the fluid as quickly as he could to wash away the taste of meat and water that lingered in his mouth. After being starved for ages, then fed like an animal in a zoo, coffee in a mug made him feel like a person again. Only when it was emptied did he take a breath, licking the inside of the ceramic for one last taste before holding it in his lap.

“Good right? Yoshimura’s coffee is the best!” The blonde told him.

“Yoshimura?”

“Ah, yeah, that’s another thing. So… the ghouls that are here. They want to talk to you.”

Takizawa pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

“No no I promise they’re cool,” Hide ensures. “One is Ken, he’s been through this before so he can talk to you about what it’s like getting used to this. Yoshimura is the other one, he’s really nice and knows how to take care of people. He took care of Ken and a lot of people and now he’s doing that with you. Also I’d feel bad about not telling you this up front, he’s the Owl.”

“ _ What? _ The  _ owl  _ Hide? The fucking  _ owl?” _ He demands. Of all the ghouls he’d studied in his time as an investigator, that was the last one he’d expect to be described as ‘sweet helpful old man.’

“You can’t seriously expect the  _ owl  _ to be safe.”

The bitchiness returning to Seidou was a good sign that he was getting a bit more stable.

“Trust me, I was surprised to learn who he was too, but I’ve been through all this with my boyfriend and it’ll be okay,” the blonde went on.

“I may be the only human involved in this, but I know what I’m doing. If I had a nickel for every time I helped a previously human half-ghoul recover from being tortured by Aogiri, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?”

The silver haired man lets out the tiniest chuckle.

“This is so fucking crazy, I’d believe anything you’d tell me because it can’t be crazier than everything else.”

“What if I told you I also know the black dog, the rabbit,  _ and  _ the devil ape?”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Nope! That last one will be happy to tell you literally everything about it though, he never shuts up about being the devil ape so it’s hard not to know.” He jibes. Seeing as how Takizawa had relaxed enough to talk slightly normally, he tried again.

“You can meet them all. They’re good people. For now though, could you come out and talk to my guys? I promise we all just want to help you.”

Seidou’s eyes darted a bit as he considered.

“Can you promise that you won’t let them send me back to that place?”

“I can, I absolutely can,” he assured.

“...alright.”

“Nice! I’m proud of you man! Are you okay with being hugged?”

The half-ghoul shook his head.

“Understandable, but if you ever change your mind I’m always here to be a serotonin machine,” he stands up, making his friend flinch.

“Oh, sorry man”

“It’s fine… are these ghouls… right outside?”

“Yup. And they aren’t going to touch you or even get close to you if you don’t want them to.”

While he was not convinced of his safety, Takizawa nodded, and stood, stumbling a bit as he steadied himself on shaky legs. He held the blanket around him, still not ready to give it up after growing used to warmth and clothing being taken away. Hide leads the way out of the room, the half-ghoul stays close, but not too close, as he anxiously follows, mug abandoned on the floor.

Kaneki watches the pair emerge, Hide gives them a thumbs up to let them know that it worked, and a hunched figure follows sheepishly, peeking around the corner to be sure it was just the two people he’d been prepared for before coming out. The sight made Ken’s heart ache for the boy, his motions were tense and fearful, and despite being the same height as Hide, the clothes that weren’t covered by the blanket hung off of his gaunt frame. The grey haired man’s mismatched eyes darted between him and Yoshimura as he backed into a small chair, as far from them as possible. The worst part, however, was the  _ smell. _

He smells like Jason.

At first Kaneki thinks it’s just some remnant from his nightmare, or that he was going into a panic attack, but the scent was real, and coming from the pitiful creature. He shifted nervously, trying to ignore the stench of his tormentor as well as the fear pheromones that came from its source. Yoshimura did exactly as he’d said and started talking.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Takizawa,” he greeted gently, softening his voice to put the man at ease. Seidou nodded slightly, eyes not leaving the old man as if he expected him to attack.

“My name is Yoshimura, I run a cafe in the twentieth ward. I’ve made it my duty to care for those ghouls in need and unable to hunt for themselves, so you will not be facing this alone. I assume you have many questions, so feel free to ask them.”

Quaking fingers tightened their grip on the blanket. He wasn’t sure if this was a trap, the scent of ghoul… of  _ kakuja,  _ was powerful. He may be old, but he is still the owl, an SS ranked monster who devours humans and ghouls regardless of species. He looks to the side to where Hide is standing at the counter getting his own coffee, and he gives him a nod, letting him know it’s okay.

“...you’re the owl right?”

“I am.”

“And… you know what I did before I got turned into this?”

“A second rank ghoul investigator, yes,” he stated plainly. Seidou wanted to shrink in on himself, to make himself smaller until he disappeared. He was helplessly open already, and he was looking one of the most dangerous ghouls in Japan right in the eyes as he acknowledged his career of slaughtering ghouls.

“I will admit I was… apprehensive about taking you in, but your profession shouldn’t matter now. You are aware that the box carriers kill all ghouls regardless of who they are, so you know that if you go back to them, they will kill you too.”

“Y-yes.”

“And that if you give us over to them, there is nothing stopping us from giving you over again,” Yoshimura leans forward.

“I do not want to threaten you, but this is the most important lesson so you will learn it first: We ghouls must handle our personal problems without involving any law enforcement, because if one is discovered and has nothing to lose, they will give out their enemies locations. This mutually assured destruction is what keeps us safe, from ourselves and from each other. Do you understand?”

The grey haired man looks down. He never thought about that, in all his time working to end ghoul violence, he never considered that they’d have these agreements and pacts. He nods.

“Wonderful. Now that that’s out of the way, I have a few options for you. Since becoming a ghoul, life will be different. Your job is no longer safe, and you now must eat humans to survive.”

“I  _ can’t.” _

“I’m afraid you have too, that is the tragedy of our existence.”

“But… I  _ can’t!  _ I can’t kill people!”

“You won’t have too. My network is the reason the 20th ward is so peaceful, we supply our own with corpses of suicide victims. Because of that, less people hunt, and more humans and ghouls are kept alive.”

“That’s…” that doesn’t sound right. Ghouls are vicious, violent, selfish things. They hunt and kill and aren’t haunted by it like humans, it’s just in their nature. Why go out of their way to avoid it?

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I do not like bloodshed.”

“But you’re a ghoul.”

“And you are too. You’ll be tempted to think in these times that you have been made evil by this transition, but that is not so. We are just as peaceful as anyone else, and given the option to live as such, almost all will take it.”

Seidou’s eyes go wide, taking in… a lot. On the one hand, he needed this to be true. He needed to be sure that he wouldn’t become a bloodthirsty killer, he needed to be told that it’s possible not to kill people. On the other hand, if ghouls were peaceful and kind and not inherently dangerous….

_ Oh god, what has he done? _

“I… I’ve killed so many of you,” the man’s voice is hollow.

“Have I been murdering… good people?”

The room is quiet, it seems no one expected this level of self reflection, not even Yoshimura, instead, Kaneki spoke.

“We didn’t know,” the brunette tried to comfort him. 

“The CCG… They’re evil, they do everything they can to keep us fighting and killing each other because it’s easier than trying to help us. They tell humans that we’re evil on purpose since… otherwise no one would want to kill us for no reason. When I was human I had no idea, and now I know  _ everything,  _ and it’s  _ terrifying _ .”

Takizawa swallowed again, voice shaking.

“Are you Kaneki.”

“...yes.”

“The doctor wanted me to be something like you, h-he said that I  _ would  _ be another you,” he conveys.

“Now I’m something like you so… does it ever stop hurting?”

Kaneki wanted to tell him that it does. He wanted to do what his manager asked of him. He wanted to say that he’s fine after everything and mean it. But he can’t. He smells Jason, he feels cold, and he sees a trembling, frightened, broken mirror image of himself, and can’t abandon him for the sake of ease. He won’t pretend, because that won’t do him any good.

“It doesn’t,” he smiles sadly. “It hurts, and it keeps hurting. But then you get people who sort of understand, and you start eating right, you start remembering how to be a person again, and it hurts  _ less.” _

Their eyes meet, a tentative, fearful, hopeful connection between two mismatched pairs. Brown and mercury, black and red, recognition of a pain so awful and so specific that no one else in the world could understand it. The old man sees this spark of hope for recovery, and offers more.

“I brought some meat for you when you’re ready. And if you’re up to it, you should call your mother. If you’re willing to risk her reporting you, it could help.”

The mention of his mother made him flinch.

“She-I, no-  _ no.  _ I’m not  _ human,  _ I… it’s dangerous right?”

He wanted to see her. He wanted to see his family again. He wanted to hear his mother’s ramblings about her friends, he wanted to watch his father’s boring tv dramas with him, he wanted to make fun of his stupid sister’s stupid hair. He missed the little things that made him part of the family so much, but if his parents saw him for the thing he is now and were half as horrified as he is, he just might break.

“I texted her last night, please read them before you make your decision. Nagachika could you please hand him this?” The old man holds out his phone, opened to the conversation with Ms. Takizawa. The human takes it from him and brings it to Seidou, who apprehensively takes the device. He almost doesn’t want to read it,  _ what if she hates me already? _ But he couldn’t resist a glimpse at how his mother felt about him, and looked over the texts.

He just about broke apart.

The half-ghoul choked at the certainty, lingering on the ‘I love my son.’ More tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he’s reminded that someone in the world really does love him. Nervously, hopefully, he looks back to Yoshimura.

“You may call her as long as you do not give her any of our real names,” the kakuja allows. It’s not like he can stop him if he chooses to anyway. Seidou rushes to hit the call button, and holds the device to his ear, praying silently that she picks it up, that he can hear her voice.

For the first time in ages, the gods must be listening.

**“Hello?”**

“...mom?”

**“Who is this?”**

“Mom,” the boy choked. “It’s me, I-I’m not dead.”

He swears he can hear a shaken breath on the other side.

**“...Seidou?”**

For the first time since his capture, for the first time since beatings and tortures and unparalleled hell, he lights up.

“Y-yeah, it’s me, it’s me!” He laughs into the receiver, indescribably happy at being recognized. A sob can be heard from Michie.

**“Oh my god- my boy! How,** **_how?!_ ** **They said they found your arm-I saw your arm! There was a funeral there was-... you’re alive!”**

She sobs

**“Last night I got texts from someone who said they were a ghoul, they… said you got turned into a ghoul.”**

His blood runs cold, he isn’t sure how to tell her that that was true.

“Mom I…  _ I’m so messed up. _ The aogiri tree people took me and they  _ did something to me,  _ they put a kakuhou in me and  _ I couldn’t stop them _ .”

This time, it was him who was crying, not in relief, but in fear as he relayed the horrors of his torture to his mother.

“They cut me open and tore me up  _ over and over and made me into-“ _

**“Come home.”**

“...what? I’m… mom I’m not  _ human  _ anymore.”

**“That’s… I don’t care, I don’t care what anyone did to you or if you’re a ghoul or even if you have to kill and eat people. I would have killed everyone in Japan and then myself if it meant I could get you back. This is so confusing and I don’t know what’s going on… but my boy is** **_hurting_ ** **and** **_alive_ ** **and I’m** **_still your mom. Every day since you died nothing felt real, Please… come home, I love you”_ **

“I will, I will- I thought… I didn’t think you’d still want me.”

**“Of course I do! And Seina, either she’s** **_accepting_ ** **that you’re… different now, or I’m** **_making_ ** **Her accept it. Whatever it takes I’m getting you home.”**

“Aren't you… why aren’t you scared? I’m a  _ ghoul.” _

**“I… of course I’m scared of ghouls, but not** **_you,_ ** **it’s different when it’s you. I know you’re not dangerous, you’re my boy.”**

Seidou sniffled

“O-okay.”

**“And… the ghoul who you're with, can you tell them I’m grateful?”**

“I will…” he tried to collect himself. “He’s, um,  _ they’re  _ nice. They say they’re going to help me…”

**“They… ghouls can really do that?”**

“I guess, I… I think I did some evil shit in the CCG. When I was out on the mission, Arima was  _ there.  _ He was  _ right there  _ and he let them take me. They  _ all  _ let them take me and didn’t even  _ look for me. _ It was… it was  _ one  _ friend and a bunch of ghouls that saved me, and I’ve spent my whole career  _ murdering them _ . Now… now I’m one of them and I’m  _ terrified  _ of people like me.”

His mom is quiet for a minute.

**“You’re going to be okay, you** **_need_ ** **to be, I don’t know what to do but you’re going to be okay. So please,** **_please_ ** **come home, I missed you so much.”**

“...I will mom… for now I need to go, I need to find a way home.”

**“Okay, please stay safe,** **_please stay safe.”_ **

For a few moment, he just sits there, holding the phone as he heard his mother stifle sobs on the other side, before finally ending the call. He wiped the tears streaming down his face and handed the phone back to Hide, who in turn handed it back to Yoshimura. 

“That sounded like it went well,” he commented.

“She…  _ she still wants me,”  _ the boy choked.

“Because she is a good parent. When you’re ready we can take you over.”

“...she said that she’s grateful for you. For protecting me.”

“It is what we do, we care for our own, and you are one of us.”

Takizawa looked down, and very slightly loosened his grip on the blanket.

“You guys really… you’re really helping me? You’re really trying to save me?”

Yoshimura smiles

“We are. Are you willing to accept it?”

“...yes.”

“Good,” the old man stood up slowly, then walked over to him to offer a hand. Seidou flinches back, but forces himself to be brave. He won’t let the horrors drag him away from who he used to be, he won’t be the broken thing Kanou tried to reduce him to. He took the hand.

“Welcome to Anteiku son.”


	4. Son of Someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takizawa goes home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this house we love and appreciate Michie Takizawa

_ Son, he called me son?  _ As the group walks, Takizawa is trapped inside his own head, even on the way here these ghouls had told him more about them that he’d found himself in all his time at the CCG.  _ I’m alive, I’m free, mom wants me back, these ghouls are… really nice.  _ The four of them make their way down the street, moving inconspicuously past other pedestrians as they make their way to Seidou’s home.  _ I’m going home, I’m going home.  _ The boy is hugging his arms, still feeling cold even with the jeans and thick jacket he’d borrowed from Hide. Everything felt more intense than before, the perfumes of passersbys were sharp and sickening, the sounds of traffic assaulted his senses, and the other ghouls around him made him nervous. 

The owl, the  _ owl _ , the SSS rated kakuja that countless people died fighting called him ‘son’. Now that he was… no longer human, he could smell it on him. The death, the mutation, the strong menacing aroma that his instincts told him meant danger. A ghoul eater, a kakuja,  _ he’s just a sweet old man. _ Maybe it’s his very recent trauma, maybe it’s his memories of his own father being violent and unkind, but he wanted to trust him. A soft expression, slow, careful movements that he could tell were purposeful in putting him at ease, were tiny things that made him less frightened. Yoshimura noticed his staring and looked at him, the younger man quickly looking straight ahead, embarrassed that he had been so rude.  _ I used to chew out my classmates for doing shit like that.  _

“How are you holding up Mr. Takizawa?” The owl asked, making him flinch and hug his arms tighter.

“Ah- I’m okay,” he muttered.

“It’s alright if you’re not,” the old man assures, moving in front of him to let a pair of girls walk past them, then stays quiet for awhile until they’re far enough away that they couldn’t be overheard.

“When we arrive at your mother’s house, Kaneki and I will be wearing our masks, and you will be addressing us by our aliases. You mother clearly will not turn you in to the doves, but she has no such attachments to us. Can you do that?”

“Yes sir,” the man agrees, then furrows his brow. “Wait, which one is he?” He looks to Kaneki, who is walking next to Hide. The other half ghoul looks up.

“Oh um, I think you call me the eyepatch,” he answers. Seidou blanches.

“Eyepatch?  _ Are you the one who killed Mado?”  _

The brunette flinched.

“I was… involved. But no, my friend did. Mado he… he killed a little girl’s family, then he tried to kill her with a quinque  _ made  _ of her family.”

“Oh fuck. Uh… wow.”

“Yeah… I fought another guy though.”

_ Yes please anything other than the “attempted child murder by a trusted superior” topic. _

“Amon. I worked with him. He talks about you constantly.”

“He does?”

“Ghouls don’t usually spare us, I guess it bothered him… wait that makes a lot of sense now that I know you used to be human.”

The eyepatch nods, ever so subtly sliding his hand into Hide’s.

“Oh dude, Amon would be  _ so  _ happy if he could hear you’re alive,” the blonde interjected since everything being discussed was soul crushingly sad.

“Really?” Seidou inquired. He didn’t  _ think  _ he would be. Amon was a god, amazing fighting ability, a quick rise in the ranks, pretty face, chiseled abs that he checked out a few times in like, a straight way. That man was  _ amazing _ , it’s strange to think of him being so excited to hear from him, especially now that he’s… whatever he is now.

“I’m pretty sure he made a murder oath at your funeral, I feel bad for whatever ghoul supposedly killed you. Actually, who  _ were  _ you fighting in that raid?”

“Just some white coats, I forget who it was that cut me, I think it was one of Jason’s guys.”

For some reason, he starts smelling something from the other half ghoul… fear pheromones he thinks. This new nose is hard to use.

“Huh…” the blonde squeezed his boyfriend’s hand and tried to quickly change the subject.

“So how far are we from your mom’s house?”

Seidou looks up at the nearest street sign.

“Should be two or three blocks.”

So  _ close.  _ It was hard to believe he’d  _ made  _ it, it felt an eternity away, everything did. The last two months seems distant, like his brain had shut off the lights in that bloodstained room so he could only recall timeless blurs and abstract pain. Yesterday was a chainsaw to the belly right?  _ Yesterday _ . That was so long ago, this last night was ages, the blackness washing away the sins he’d been flayed with and leaving only deep bloody cuts. Even when he woke this morning in a frenzy, some unknown instinct that sought safety he couldn’t imagine finding, he’d been reborn. Today and yesterday are different chapters, the last a haze of suffering and the next wracked with fear, but a fear with some hope of salvation. Behind him is a wistful suffering, ahead of him a tentative wish, and beside him is a friend, a former enemy, another man like himself.

Maybe,  _ just maybe,  _ he could be okay.

Seidou smells something familiar, he glances up ahead and there he sees his house, the fragrant lavender bushes welcoming him back to safety. The edges of his mouth tease the ghost of a smile, it’s there! The little flower garden, the crack in the wall by the door, the wind chimes that he used to hate, it’s the  _ same!  _ Before Hide or the ghouls could stop him, he was running. Everything outside of the present was irrelevant, the shouts from his friend to hold up couldn’t stop him, the ache in his legs couldn’t slow him, not until he was huffing his breaths and sprinting over the gravel path to the front door. There he stilled himself, hand hovering over the doorbell.

His mother and sister were on the other side. His family is there ready to comfort or be repulsed by him, and he couldn’t know which until they saw him. He hadn’t been so nervous to enter his own home since before his father left, this time he didn’t fear anger from someone inside, but an infinite amount of disgusted looks. The silver haired man had no choice but to be a ghoul now, he had no comrades but the recently made bonds with a legendary monster, a creature like him, and a work friend, but the one thing he couldn’t lose was his family. He’ll know what they’ll think one he… rings the bell.

The man must have been frozen there for awhile, because the others caught up with him. Hide was on his left with Kaneki, who had taken his mask from his manager’s bag and was putting it on. Yoshimura was on his right, mask already covering his face. Seidou looked the owl in his one visible eye and saw none of the violence and rage he heard senior investigators describe when they reminisce about old friends who this man had killed, only a knowing sympathy.

“Are you ready?” The old man asks him. The new half-ghoul doesn’t know what to say. He’s  _ not,  _ he never will be, and it seems he understands.

“Ring the bell, everyone here wants the best for you.”

Reluctantly, obediently, he did so. The soft chime was all he could hear over his racing heart, soon followed by hurried footsteps. The moment the lock was turned lasted an eternity, in that second the man ran through every worst case scenario, every horrified gasp, every scream of terror, every sound the door could make as it’s slammed back in his face. One human eye, one kakugan, both filled with fear as he was about to face the people he cared most about with a certainty that they couldn’t love him after they see the black of his sclera.

But when Michie opened the door, she only looked up at him, mouth agape and reddened eyes wide. Before Seidou could whimper a pitiful word, she had him crushed in a hug. Hide and the ghouls had stepped aside as the young man was frozen, his mother sobbing into his shoulder. Disbelief swirled in his mind where the terror had been, slowly bringing him to the present, to the golden scenario he occupied. The new, ghoulish senses made it all more intense, the smell of home wafted around him, keeping the embrace from triggering a panic. In the bloody room he imagined this countless times, going to his family and being held in arms that wouldn’t harm him, it was hard to believe it was real. Ever so carefully his shaking arms held her back, his face dropping as a sob croaked from him.

“Seidou,  _ my boy,  _ you’re home,” his mother cried, still clinging to him as if he’d be lost to her if she let him go. When she finally brings herself to look at his face, her sorrow and relief are clear to the boy who flinches when she touches a bright red rc pathway on his face below the kakugan.

“Oh sweetie... did they  _ do  _ to you?”

“I-I…” he couldn’t say anything more, he didn’t know how he could tell his mother everything, that he was cut open over and over, made to eat human flesh. 

“It’s okay, whatever they did we’ll… we’ll help. Oh your  _ eye,  _ they really… it’s okay,” she hugs her son tighter. As Seidou broke down, shuddering with conflicting emotions as he was assured that he was still loved, still home, Michie looked over his shoulder. Her eyes darted between Hide, Kaneki, and Yoshimura, finally settling to stare defensively,  _ defiantly,  _ at the one eyed owl. No amount of horror stories on the news or corpses in this man’s path would dissuade the mother from protecting the son who came back from death. The newscaster reported that Aogiri was led by the owl, and to hell with kagune and quinque, whoever did this to her boy will die a painful death.

“I’ll leave him to you,” the old man states, content in the knowledge that this woman would clearly knife fight god before she let her son get hurt.

“Mr. Takizawa, when you’re ready to talk to us you can call Nagachika, for now, stay safe.”

Mitchie didn’t cease her icy gaze as Yoshimura turned and started off, prompting the other two to go as well, a small wave from Hide being the last interaction from the reluctantly leaving pair. Just as the ghouls removed their masks, facing the street so the woman couldn’t see their faces, the boy spoke up.

“Thank you Y-… owl,” he uttered. The man paused before leaving the property, not turning to reply.

“You’re one of us now, we gladly protect our own,” with that he was gone, three sets of footsteps disappearing behind the overgrown lavenders and their neighbor’s bushes. There he was alone, only him and his mother in a familiar salvation.

“Come inside,” the woman takes his hand and tugs him in like a small child, then shuts and locks the door after them as if it would keep the unknown ghouls out. Seidou sniffed at the air, the warmth, the dust, the scent of cheap perfume from his sister’s room. The house is just like it was the day he went missing, only a bit more unkempt. His mother never usually let it get this way.  _ It hasn’t been so dirty since dad left… she really did mourn me.  _ The man was given no time to ponder over just how for every day he was being tormented by his captors, his family were being tormented by his ‘death,’ as he was pulled onto a couch where his mother still refused to let go of his hand. It was silent besides their shaky breaths for several seconds, only broken by his mother.

“I didn’t think it was real, I-I thought it was a dream. I woke up and I  _ hated  _ myself for dreaming about bringing you home but you’re  _ here,”  _ the woman swallows to keep herself from weeping more.

“You sounded so hurt, oh you  _ look  _ hurt, honey what happened?”

The boy’s breath hitched, he wasn’t sure what there was to say. He wants to tell her everything, he wants  _ someone  _ to know all the pain and humiliation he endured all alone in that place, but he couldn’t bear letting his mom’s heart break any further. Not after the rift he left. 

“I’m… one of them now, mom they- they  _ made me  _ this,” the man whispered. 

“I know honey I know, you’re… you’re not human anymore and it’s fine. I  _ know  _ you didn’t ask for any of this. I want to know what they  _ did,  _ please tell me what they did.”

Dread crept back up his throat, the waterlogged memories of torture and exposure make his stomach churn. His mother wanted to know, he wanted to tell her,  _ just get it over with. _

“They had a doctor, he put a kakuhou in me and made me this  _ thing.  _ I was supposed to be a weapon for them. He locked me in this room and cut me open over and  _ over  _ and  _ over again,”  _ his breathing grew faster as Kanou’s unfazed grin flashed through his mind.

“My limbs and organs grew back and then he’d do it again he-he made me  _ eat people  _ and I just  _ let him-!” _

“No! Oh god sweetie  _ no  _ y-you didn’t  _ let him  _ he was hurting you! None of this is your fault…. did you think I’d think it was your fault?” Her face pales in even more grief than before, and it finally occurs to him that she really doesn’t.

“I…” he sniffles. “I don’t know anymore,  _ everything feels wrong. _ ”

Michie hugs her son again, doing anything to force her boy to understand the love he’d been cut off from.

“I need you to understand where  _ I’ve  _ been,” she whispers. “When I got a call from your superiors that you’d been eaten by ghouls I practically  _ died.  _ They  _ took my baby  _ and me and your sister couldn’t do anything to get you back. We had a funeral and didn’t even have a body just this… this  _ arm  _ that looked like frozen meat. I didn’t protect you from your bullies or your father and I swore to myself that I’d never let anyone hurt you again… but then you got eaten. We’ve just been  _ surviving,  _ every day was so empty without you, I just… went to work and let the house fall apart and your sister skipped two weeks of school and I  _ just didn’t see it ever getting better.  _ Then last night that ghoul tells me you’re alive and I-I thought it was a sick prank… then you called… oh my god I feel like I’m alive again.”

She breaks down weeping against him, the two of them vulnerable, living corpses from separate hells who were just starting to see anything besides the end of the world.

“...okay,” the boy said, as plainly and simply as he could.  _ Okay, okay… okay.  _ What more is there to say? What else can sum up weeks of apocalyptic suffering coming to close?

“I love you,  _ I love you so much,  _ you can  _ never  _ be taken again, I won’t let anyone take you.”

“I… I love you too mom.”

The woman’s crying is interrupted by a relieved chuckle, months of mourning crashing down into a complicated reversal.

“That ghoul was so sure I would call the CCG on you.”

“I guess I finally understand why they hate us..  _ them  _ so much,” Seidou figures, smiling ever so slightly as he tests the boundaries of relief.

“Fuck, we’ve been killing good people, even if they  _ are  _ ghouls.”

“Those ghouls! That was the Owl right? I saw him on the news! He runs Aogiri right?  _ Why did he bring you back?” _

“No… we were wrong,” the boy admits. “That guy isn’t with them, he.. those guys saved me. Hideyoshi, he’s an intern. We were friends and apparently he’s been  _ dating  _ a ghoul who just  _ happens  _ to know the Owl who’s… he’s just an old man who makes coffee!”

Mitchie smiles, witnessing her boy rising slightly out of his far too recent trauma into his old self. She wipes his tears with her shirt sleeve before wiping her own.

“Was he the one who texted me?”

“I think so, it’s so weird to think that we were mortal enemies. He’s scary but only because I know what he is… and  _ eyepatch!  _ The other one! He’s like me h-he used to be human!”

“Is that… why he’s with your friend? Because he was already human when they met?”

“I don’t know the full story but… mom, we’ve been  _ wrong,  _ ghouls they’re just people. I’ve hurt so many of them… I need to make it right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I’m so scared to have to eat people and fight and maybe get killed by the CCG even though  _ I  _ know I’m not evil. They  _ all  _ feel like that… I used to say that we don’t know if they have a sense of camaraderie, but now I  _ know  _ they do. Mr. Yo- the Owl, he said he has a place in the 20th ward that feeds the ghouls suicide victims so they don’t have to hunt and takes in people who need help.”

His mother’s eyes widened.

“They… really think like us?”

“Yeah… it… it might not be so bad being a ghoul since they’re helping me. At least I don’t need to kill people.”

“Okay, that’s… oh wow in never really thought they could be so human. Do you mean they’re going to… feed you?”

Seidou looks down.

“I guess so. That and… on the way over he said I can work there, it’s some cafe, makes sense since I can’t go back to the CCG. Ka- eyepatch says he can help me figure out other things, like how to deal with instincts and stuff…”

“Good… I’ll admit I don’t know half as much as real ghouls do about being a ghoul… but if it falls through there’s a bitch in my book club who said some very rude things about Seina who I have no problem inviting over to be eaten!”

The boy actually laughs, god, how long has it been since he’d just joked around with his mom?

“I don’t think we have too- Seina! How do we tell  _ her  _ about all this? She could still call the CC-“

“Nope! No. Never, I won’t let her. Besides, she  _ misses  _ you. She’s not going to give you up any more than I would. We are  _ never  _ letting you go again, and if those ghouls even  _ think  _ about hurting you I will find a way to kill them with a wooden spoon!”

Smiling, optimistic for the first time in ages, the boy makes a decision. If it means doing good by the few people he had left, he’d stay alive.

“I’m going to be okay mom, I promise.”

“Good… I’ve already gotten too many grey hairs from worrying.” She pats his head.

“And so have  _ you!” _


	5. Devil Ape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seidou goes to work at anteiku, his introduction goes better than he expected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter one but ya gotta love Koma’s dumbassery

Seidou had never been more attached to his family, he’d always loved them of course, even when his father had isolated them from one another in the months before he left, but coming back from the grave made him even more appreciative. Those first days were interspersed with crying, laughter, and deep seated discomfort. His mother never let him out of her sight for long to be sure he was safe, his sister, upon learning he was alive and inhuman, was researching ghouls, and his dog was at his heels. Seina was apprehensive of course, but whatever teenage bitchiness that usually drove her had evaporated when she learned what happened to him. Their reunion had been tearful as well, but she was quicker to have questions that he wasn’t able to answer. She wasn’t old enough to remember how terrified their mother was when their neighbor was eaten, and was interested in his new ghoulhood. He tried to ignore it though, it was so much to deal with and he wasn’t sure how he felt. It was too early to tell, still in shock from his torture. The girl asked about his kagune, his hair, what human flesh tastes like. It was a morbid fascination, and while it came from a place of support, he tried to change the subject whenever it came up.

His family did everything they could to support him. Michie would always have fresh coffee ready for him, Seina would stop pestering him with questions when he became visibly uncomfortable, and rocky was a good companion when he wasn’t ready to interact with anyone but didn’t want to be alone. Even so, they are human, and they can’t save him from the instincts that have crawled into his brain. Tonight, five days from coming home, is one of those nights.

Seidou is laying on his side in his bed, blue blanket covering him up to his chin. Luckily his mother had kept his belongings as stated in his will, so he could get his phone back, which he was now mindlessly looking through. He tried looking for news about the ccg, anything that might let him know if he could justify what he’d done while working there. All he found though was an unpleasant reminder that his work was for people who never cared for him. Jason had been killed, so had several Aogiri executives. That raid was a project he had worked on, he planned half the strategy, he even came up with the attack formation. So much overtime, so many late nights, so much work into that project.

And it was all credited to Arima

Fucking  _ Arima _

He frowned at the article and kept reading, but paragraph after paragraph it raved over the man, worshipping the heroism and genius of the investigator who only came in the do some fighting,  _ who watched him get maimed and taken.  _ He did nothing. He could have saved him and he did nothing. The man feels tears prick at his eyes, whether from rage for his work and death being ignored or sorrow at being abandoned, he grit his teeth. He’s cried so many times in these months, from pain and fear and even relief, but he refused to cry over this.  _ Arima, fucking Arima.  _ That was  _ his  _ work,  _ his  _ strategy,  _ his  _ sacrifice, and Arima gets the credit. All that eludes to him is the little ‘27 investigators dead in the raid’ that didn’t even mention his name.

A growl crawled up from his throat. A cracking, rumbling, horrid noise that he choked on once he realized he was making it. Anxiety rose inside of him, it always did when he did something ghoulish. It was getting worse over time, his sensitivity to light and smells, the need to release his kagune, his… hunger. God he was so hungry, so terribly hungry but he couldn’t bear to think about it, only let his shame build when he realizes his body craves human flesh. Takizawa breathes deeply, hoping to calm the anxiety before he goes into an increasingly common attack of hyperventilating. He  _ knew  _ he couldn’t ignore it forever, even with what little he knew about ghouls, he knew that a starving one would hunt whoever is nearest.

That would be his family.

He swallows, clenches his jaw, and retreats under the blankets. There’s no ignoring it. There’s no time to spare getting help. The CCG, his coworkers, and fucking Arima aren’t going to help him, but he has Hide’s number and was told to call when he was ready for help, and holy shit did he need it. The boy pulled up his texts to Hide, the last ones are from before his capture, back when they were just making plans for lunch or chatting about the eyepatch ghoul he was so interested in. In hindsight, clearly he was trying to gage how much the CCG knew about his boyfriend, and he had to give him props there. He sent a text.

**S: hey Hide, is this a good time?**

It wasn’t long until he got a reply.

**H: oh hey man! How are you? You doing okay?**

**S: not really. Well, my family is great, I’m so glad to be home but I’ve still got the ghoul thing going on**

**H: makes sense, you want me to have Yoshimura talk to you or do you just need a friend right now?**

Fuck this dude is so nice.

**S: put me through to the owl, thanks though**

**H: NP, he’ll text you once I give him your number. I will warn you that he probably has caps lock on for no reason. I don’t know how he keeps turning it on**

**S: it’s so weird knowing he’s so old, I always imagined him being super strong and forgot that he’s sixty or seventy**

Already, he’s a bit comforted knowing that he has someone to aid him in this. Hide is nice, Yoshimura is forgiving, and hopefully the other anteiku ghouls will at least tolerate him. Luckily it doesn’t seem like a panic attack is happening, and soon he gets the text from an unknown number.

**Y: HELLO MR.TAKIZAWA, I’M GLAD THAT YOU’RE CONTACTING US. HIDE TOLD ME YOU’RE READY TO ACCEPT HELP**

Huh, the dude wasn’t lying 

**S: yeah, thank you so much, I don’t know how to deal with ghoul stuff**

**Y: TOMORROW YOU SHOULD COME IN TO ANTEIKU, YOU ALREADY HAVE THE OFFER TO WORK HERE. WE ALSO HAVE PLENTY OF MEAT, YOU MUST BE HUNGRY.**

There it was, the inevitable subject.

**S: how long can I go without eating it? I don’t think I’m ready**

**Y: I'M AFRAID WAITING TO EAT WILL LEAD TO MORE PROBLEMS DOWN THE LINE, IT IS UNPLEASANT, BUT IT MUST HAPPEN. HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE EASIER KNOWING THAT THE MEAT IS FROM SOMEONE WHO MADE THE DECISION TO DIE ON THEIR OWN**

**S: okay. Thank you sir.**

With that, the half-ghoul sets his phone down and curls up. It’s probably a good idea to get  _ some  _ sleep, however nightmare ridden it may be, before starting a new job with a bunch of ghouls who are probably aware that he used to work to kill them.

__________

The half ghoul fidgets nervously with his tie. He had done exactly as planned, gone to anteiku, talked with the Owl, and gotten a uniform. Yoshimura was gentle with him, he had made it clear that today he would be meeting the others, eating, and getting some tips for living as a ghoul, but let him choose the order. His hunger, although persistent, was not enough to rid him of the disgust, so he chose to meet his coworkers first. His new manager had already told them that he’d be joining them, as well as  _ who  _ he was, and walking into a room full of ghouls who knew that he used to want to slaughter them made his mouth feel dry. But this is the exchange for help, and at least Kaneki would be there. The other half ghoul had already leant him an eyepatch to cover the unruly kakugan, as well as a quick assurance that the employees wouldn’t immediately kill him before he went to start opening.

“Are you ready to go in?” The manager asked.

“Uh… yeah,” Takizawa answered reluctantly. ‘No’, he wanted to say. ‘No I am not ready to face a bunch of people who I used to try to kill and probably want me dead.’ He didn’t say that though, he just let the old man lead him in to the cafe. Looking around, he saw the employees. There was a big man with a pompadour and a slender woman behind the counter, a ginger man cleaning some dishes, and a teenager sitting with a child at a table. They all looked over at him, apprehension on some faces, hostility on the teenager’s, the only person there who didn’t look a little hostile is Kaneki, setting up chairs at the far end of the room.

“Everyone, this is Mr. Takizawa,” Yoshimura announces. “You know what he used to be but if he was still affiliated with then he would have turned me in by now so there’s nothing to worry about.”

The man gives a little wave to the ghouls, and it’s quiet for a few seconds until the larger man spoke.

“Yo. I’m Enji…. But you probably know me as the devil ape.”

The room erupted in exasperated moans.

“Koma I am  _ going  _ to kill you,” says the teenager.

“If this guy doesn’t turn you in  _ I  _ will,” comments the ginger. The slight woman smiles as Takizawa’s face, widened eyes half impressed, half afraid.

“I promise it gets old after awhile,” she sighs. “Well I’ll say this once, I’m Irimi, you know me as the black dog.”

“What?” Seidou mutters. “A-aren’t you guys sworn enemies?”

“Used to be,” Koma chimes in. “But that was awhile ago. Guess you’d know that from your bosses at the CCG.”

The devil ape’s grin is taunting, knowingly putting him on the spot. It’s a joke and a challenge for him to reject or defend. The half ghoul looks to the side a bit, avoiding his eyes.

“Yeah… sorry… my bad,” he falters.

“Oh I’m just messing with you, you’re a ghoul now so if you go to them you’re as fucked as the rest of us!” He laughs. “I mean obviously we’ll murder you if you’re dumb enough to try to take us down, but I doubt you’ll try. We’re cool alright?”

Seidou released a relieved breath. This guy is a legend, an infamously dangerous ghoul and, apparently, very chill. 

“Thank you.”

“Oh come on,  _ really?  _ Are we just going to ignore that he’s a  _ dove? _ ” The teenager hisses.

“I’m with Touka. How can we  _ know  _ we can trust him?” Agreed the ginger.

“Because if we die he dies,” Irimi defends. 

“Yeah,” concurred Enji. “It doesn’t matter if he was a dove Nishiki, getting turned into a ghoul cancels it out. Pemdas or some shit. I don’t know I never went to school.”

“We can tell,” Nishio grumbles.

“I… I never turned you guys in. I wasn’t ever an investigator but I was human,” Kaneki offered.

“Shut up twink this is different,” the girl snaps, effectively shutting him up. “How many of us did you kill? Do you have any idea how many innocent people were murdered by your kind?”

The little girl at the table looks down, staring at the pages of a book she was reading to try to block out the argument.

“I… I’m sorry-,” Takizawa attempts. He  _ is  _ sorry, but he obviously can’t expect her to just accept it.

“Fuck that, I’ll believe you give a shit about us when you kill those bastards you worked for.”

“Touka,” Yoshimura scolds. “Your fear is valid, but Seidou is not with them anymore. He is one of us now.”

Touka looks to her manager, then back to him. She scoffs.

“Come on Hinami, we’re going upstairs.”

The little girl nods, and goes along with the young woman as she storms out. She gives one look to Seidou before she goes upstairs, not particularly afraid or angry, more curious than anything else. The silver haired boy shifts in place, heart beating rapidly and nerves threatening to make him even more jumpy. When the two girls are gone, the manager sighs.

“Touka is much less fond of box carriers than most, which is saying something. She is not permitted to hurt you though, and she’ll eventually come around. Nishio, will you be having a problem too or are you alright to work?”

“It’s fine,” he grumbles. “You, dove, start any shit and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Understood,” Seidou whimpers. The tension in the room is thick, no one wanting so say anything that may spark a real fight. Not until Koma once again broke the silence

“You probably don’t really know  _ how  _ to start shit if you tried huh? Later I can give you some pointers on fighting,” he offers. The olive branch seems to ease everyone into a shaky truce.

“He’s pretty good,” Ken comments. “At fighting I mean.”

“Of course I am! As the infamous de-!”

“Shut up about being the devil ape! Shut up!” Nishiki yells, Enji only laughing in response.

“A guy I worked with said he had nightmares about you, glad I’m on your side now,” Seidou attempts to joke. Apparently, that went over well, because it earned him a slap on the back from him.

“That’s what I like to hear! You and I are gonna get along.”

The new half-ghoul smiles a bit. Alright, so he  _ wasn’t  _ going to be murdered! And holy shit, the devil ape is chill as hell. Hard to imagine this guy wiping out entire strike teams.

“Careful newbie, you’re gonna inflate his ego even more than it already is,” chimes in Irimi.

“Too late, I’ve already absorbed the serotonin. I’m a god now.”

Yoshimura smiles.

“I’m glad you’re starting to get along. I need to talk to the young ladies so I’ll leave you all to open. Remember Mr. Takizawa, you’re not to mention anything ghoul-related when humans might be around.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright then, good luck.” With that, the Owl goes upstairs, leaving the four. 

“See? They're really good people,” Ken tells the grey haired man, who nods.

“...thanks, seriously having you to warn me about things from your perspective helps a lot.”

“I know, I wish I had someone like me when I was turned,” Kaneki leans in the whisper. “Because these guys usually forget that I don’t know ghoul stuff that they learned when they were kids and forget to tell me.”

“Heard that,” Nishiki comments. “That's another ghoul thing, good hearing.”

“Is… I’ve been hearing way more sounds. Is that why?”

  
  


“A lot of things are way more intense for ghouls,” Ken confirms. “ Fluorescent lights and scented products are worse now right?”

“You’ve noticed that too?” Seidou asks, disbelief at the confirmation that he isn’t just crazy.

“Oh those are terrible,” Koma gripes. “I killed someone wearing an ungodly amount of Axe once and couldn’t even eat them. That smell almost made me throw up.”

“Well, Axe specifically makes  _ everyone  _ want to throw up, humans too,” Kaneki differs. “But yes, you’re going to want to get unscented versions of things.”

The boy nods,  _ so that’s why.  _ It was hard to tell what was trauma and what was ghoul behavior when it came to new sensitivities and reactions, so it was good to hear from others that he wasn’t making it up.

“We can tell him more later,” Irimi speaks up. “Right now it’s opening time.”

“Oh damn it is,” Nishiki commented, looking up at the clock.

“Alright dove, stick by us and try not to get in the way.”

Takizawa nods, moving closer to Koma as he was the least threatening, and Enji had no complaints working with the one person still impressed that he was the devil ape. Ken gives him a thumbs up, and the silver haired ghoul smiles. Okay, it’s tense, but it’s okay. Clearly that teenager, Touka, hates him. Nishiki tolerates him, Irimi and Koma could even be his friends, and Yoshimura and Kaneki were already supportive. It was such a huge relief.  _ Maybe this will be good, I could get along with these guys.  _ The relief is immediate, not only could he potentially get along with them, but even though the ghouls are unsure of him they were willing to take him in.  _ These are good people _ , he thinks.  _ I’ll get them to trust me, I’ve got to make up for being in the ccg.  _

Kaneki unlocks the front door and puts out the sign, Anteiku is open, and Seidou is a part of it.


	6. Family Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seidou and Kaneki eat together, it’s not the same as family dinners used to be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How would y’all feel about shorter chapters? It would mean some less content but much more frequent uploads, let me know what y’all think!

It’s been a week Since Takizawa joined anteiku, and while some have been welcoming, he still isn’t quite comfortable there yet. There’s a lot to get used to, from working a register to telling ghoul and human customers apart. Some things are easy, he’s good with numbers and the manager is happy to have someone else help with expenses. More things are difficult, the nightmares, the smells, the coworkers who give him distrustful looks, and the meat. Especially the meat.

Now after closing, he had been called up by Yoshimura. The old man, once an enemy whose alias alone made his blood run cold, had become a good friend. Maybe it’s the genuine concern and kind suggestions, maybe it’s the gentle mannerisms and reassurance he gives, or maybe it’s just his own daddy issues, but he’s inclined to listen. Even if what’s asked of him is sickening, It’s for his own good. He knows that, he just doesn’t like it. The Owl is understanding of his disgust with himself when he set up the schedule to eat every other day, he was sympathetic when Takizawa nearly cried as he ate his first meal, but he didn’t let him out of it. Again, It was for his own good, he knew he was underweight and still healing from the newly formed rc pathways. It didn’t make him want to vomit any less, it didn’t make the meat any less human.

He’s at a table with meat on his plate, chopped up into little cubes like steak cut up for a child. Slumped in his chair, he pushed them around with his fork, cringing at the way they squish as they’re pushed into each other, at the trails of blood they left. Across the table from him is Kaneki. He had learned that ghouls generally don’t eat communally like humans do, it was a private affair since they can become too territorial over food, but this is an exception. They both used to be human, and it’s been quite some time since they could share a meal with someone. Yoshimura said it might do them some good, and he can’t deny that it’s been easier to choke down the death with a conversation to distract himself from it.

“Come on, it’s just worse if you look at it,” Ken advises. Takizawa looks up at him, the brunette is eating what looks like it used to be a pectoral at a steady pace, only looking down enough to cut off manageable bites. The newer half ghoul sighs.

“Easy for you to say, you’ve been one of them longer than me,” he complains.

“That doesn’t mean i don’t think it’s gross,” he retorts. 

“The sooner you eat it the sooner it’ll be gone.”

“You sound like my mom trying to make me eat my vegetables.”

“You know what? I’m your mom now, finish your meat young man,” Kaneki teases. Seidou cracks a half-smile. Yeah, this is better than eating alone. He eyes the chunks, trying to find one that looks… he isn’t sure, appetizing isn’t the word. His companion seems to recognize that look of pointless searching.

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

“Seidou, I  _ know,  _ I’ve been there,” he tries to comfort. The silver haired man doesn’t look at him, still staring at his meal.

“I may have been turned months ago, but it’s still hard.”

“Does it…” he isn’t sure what he’s asking. “Does it ever get better? Is eating just going to feel like shit for the rest of my life?”

Kaneki pauses, swallowing what was in his mouth.

“Not better, but easier. You just get used to it I guess. You have too.”

“I guess…”

“You know, it’s not just us,” he continues. “Most of the ghouls feel weird about eating.”

“Bullshit,” Takizawa comments. “If they felt weird about it then why would they hunt more than they need too? One body is enough for them every month, they can survive on that.”

“ _ Technically,  _ yes. But would you want to live on one piece of bread every other day your whole life?”

“That’s different, that’s not enough.”

“It’s not enough for them either. The bare minimum to not starve to death isn’t living. If the CCG took into account that no one wants to feel hungry all the time…” the brunette stopped to quickly eat a tiny peice.

“The body count would be  _ 1.7 _ a month.”

Seidou cocks his head.

“That can’t be right.”

“It is. We don’t  _ want  _ to kill more than we have to, but more than one  _ is  _ how much we have to.”

“Then why is this the first I’m hearing of it?” He challenges.

“The CCG would know that if it were true.”

“They wouldn’t. They don’t.” Ken asserted, tone becoming slightly less amicable.

“You know how little they care about the people working for them. Why would they care about the people they’re trying to kill off? There’s so much they don’t know because they won’t talk to ghouls.”

He noticed that his voice had raised, making Seidou flinch.

“Sorry, I’m not mad at you…. just them.”

“...I know… I don’t know why I’m defending them,” he admits.

“They got in your head. I get it, they made you think they were just and infallible so the red flags just looked decorative.”

“That’s one way to put it.” The silver haired man supposes. “It’s kinda shitty that the number one source for ghoul stats is… well, genocidal.”

“It is. At least their unwillingness to treat ghouls like people helps us hide.”

“How?”

“Well, just what I heard from Hide. Like don’t you guys rule out most people with tattoos from being ghouls in investigations?”

“Obviously. Regular Needles can’t pierce ghoulskin and quinque steel isn’t sold to the public, it’s not like they can even get them in the first place.”

“That, like that,” his face lights up with the opportunity to share interesting information. “There’s that assumption that we don’t innovate. Needles can’t stab us, but kagune can, right? I learned about this from uta, some Ukaku types that can crystallize their kagune whittle down the shards into knives and needles for surgery and piercings and tattoos and stuff! Touka makes half her money that way. Ghouls  _ can  _ get tats because we work with each other. In fact, it’s normal to get a small tattoo somewhere for protection so if any doves come by they can show it off.”

Takizawa looks dumbfounded.

“That’s… oh my god I’ve wasted so much time combing through suspects to dismiss people with tattoos! Are you telling me that was wrong?  _ How did we not know about this?” _

Ken smiles.

“The idea that we’re animals works in our favor sometimes! Like how the protocol for finding ghoul kids is just looking for orphans. Most of them aren’t without parents because when someone dies they usually have someone to take their children in. That’s how we got Hinami.”

Hinami. The little girl.  _ The child ghoul.  _ He’s seen her around the cafe or in the living areas, but hasn’t spoken to her yet. She’s always with that teenager, who glares daggers at him if he so much as looks at her. He picks at his plate.

“...Cubs.”

“What?”

“We’re supposed to call them ‘cubs.’ We’re not supposed to refer to them as children unless it’s their alias or something.”

“Oh… that explains why that investigator called her ‘it’.”

The two are quiet for a moment. Seidou steels himself, skewers a chunk at random, and forces it in his mouth. He doesn’t like that he enjoys the taste, he makes himself chew quickly and swallow. One down.

“When was that? With the investigator?”

“Probably…” the brunette looks uncomfortable. “I don’t know exactly, a few months ago…. Touka and I had hunted down her mother’s murderer and, well…”

“You made it even.”

“We had too, well, she wanted revenge. I just did it so she wouldn’t have to run from him her entire life. That sick bastard tried to kill her with a kagune made of her  _ parents _ Seidou, it was horrifying.”

“ _ What?” _

“I never realized it until I became a ghoul, but it’s awful. We get hunted with quinque and sometimes… we recognize them.”

The newer half-ghoul’s eyes are wide, taking in the evil of the truth.

“It was Mado wasn’t it?”

Kaneki flinches.

“How did you know?”

“He had a reputation. That old man was obsessed with quinque.” Realizing that he was distracted enough to rip his focus from the taste, he choked down two more meat cubes.

“Ken I was in training with his  _ daughter,  _ I  _ worked  _ with her! I even gave her my condolences and  _ that’s  _ what he died doing? That isn’t noble, that’s fucking disgusting!”

“I know! I know, it’s just what doves are like… well not all of them, but enough that none are safe.”

“I  _ thought it was right _ , they made me think it was right.” Seidou swallowed a piece without chewing, making a sound in his throat as he forced it down.

“They gave me a gun and some body armor that didn’t do shit and I thought I was a fucking hero”

He eats another.

“Then I get my arm ripped off-“

His voice raises, he tears into another piece.

“I get turned into this  _ thing  _ and tortured for  _ months!” _

He stabs his fork into a chunk hard enough to chip the plate, he devours it in seconds.

“I lived in blood and puke and fucking  _ pain!” _

He drops the fork on the table and grabs the meat with his hands, putting it in his mouth and rushing to chew and swallow. He feels his eyes burning like he’s going to cry, not from sadness or shame at eating someone, but because his anger has nowhere else to go.

“They give fucking  _ Arima  _ all the credit for the battle formation  _ I  _ designed and don’t even mention me in a fucking obituary-“

He scarfs down the rest of the meat, hungry, ravenous, teeth sharper than they used to be.

“And they told me I was a fucking hero!” He yells, not to Ken, not even to himself. He just yells it because it needs to be screamed, but once he does, the rage on his face fades and he swallows. The blood is sweet in his mouth, a tear spills from one of his eyes. Kaneki isn’t sure what he could possibly do to comfort this man, because he was right. He’d been lied too, he’d been forced to have blood on his hands and given a title of respect that meant nothing once he was supposedly dead. He was always meant to be expendable in a pointless war, and now the only people he had to help him were his victims, so horribly forgiving. The brunette touches the back of one of his hands, on a spot that wasn’t bloodied.

“This whole thing is awful… you did bad things for them, but I don’t blame you for it. They’re liars and they get away with it. No one here believes them, you don’t have to pretend you do anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Takizawa sniffles, he wants to hide his face in his hands but they’re covered in grizzle.

“They hate me, they’re  _ right too.” _

“They just need to get used to you,” Ken assures, he takes Seidou’s napkin and hands it to him, prompting him to start wiping the blood away.

“It’s rough, it’s going to get better, but it’s rough.”

The silver haired man just nods, hoping that it was true, that this can somehow stop feeling suffocating one day.

“And hey… you finished.”

At that Seidou looks down at his plate, clean of the chunks, he must have finished during his rant. He takes a deep breath to try to keep himself from falling apart further, and focuses on the man doing his best to ease his pain. He’s lucky to have someone who went through it before advising him, it must have been nightmarish for him being the first one.

“Shit… you really are like a mom,” he jokes.

The other half ghoul laughs.

“It’s hard being a single mother when you’re a male teenager with no children.”

Seidou in turn chuckles, it’s comforting to just joke around with a friend like this, even if the context is morbid.

“I’ll take care of the dishes, you go home.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, no problem. And take some of the leftover pastries home, we always have leftovers and none of us can eat them, your family can though!”

“Really?”

“Please take them, if you don’t take them Hide or Kimi will. They’re the only other humans connected to this place and they’re going to get sick at this rate. I’ve been to Hide’s apartment, he’s living off of croissants,” he pleads.

“Alright, will do,” Takizawa agrees, going towards the door to leave.

“See you tomorrow, stay safe.”

“You too,” the newer half-ghoul calls back. 

Maybe it will get better.


	7. Bad Residue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seidou’s nightmares haven’t gotten better, if there’s anything that can be done, he wouldn’t know where to start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just gotta emotionally kneecap your favs before getting that fluff

Later that night, Seidou was asleep in his bed as usual. Perhaps  _ usual  _ isn’t the right word now, no, he’s asleep in his bed and he’s  _ grateful  _ for it. His time in the concrete room had taught him how luxurious his modest home was, even weeks after escaping the aches in his back from sleeping curled on the cold floor had yet to disappear. There were many scars left on him, from the ring of discolored, raised tissue around his arm, to the ice in his blood when he hears a chainsaw on the tv, to the way he whimpered and twitched on his mattress.

It’s been weeks since he escaped, but that place came with him.

In his dreams the room is twisted, more pipes than there really were, higher ceilings, brighter lights, the shadowy corners and ratty blanket not there for him to hide in. He found himself on his back, his body unable to escape the pain pulsing through it. There was a constant to his nightmares, a single aspect that never warped, and that was Kanou’s face. The doctor was smiling pleasantly, almost bored, as he cut him from his chest to just above waistline, scalpel taking him apart effortlessly. The burning is always vivid, he attempts to scream and beg, he throws his head back against the floor as he cries out, but no sound comes from him. It never mattered there, his words fell on deaf ears, he was an object to be used at Kanou saw fit. And use him he did, the only difference in this place was the room in his periphery, and the silence in which he suffered. Normally there would be screams and pleas and wet noises of metal ripping flesh and organs spilling. Here no matter how much he tried, there was no sound. He heard his own suffering as much as the Doctor seemed to care, that is to say not a single bit. It’s all so convenient for the man in the neat lab coat, it’s so much easier to disembowel a good boy sitting and staying. The man reaches into the slice down his body and tugs out whatever he can grasp, stomach, kidneys, one of his lungs. Objects, items, pieces of meat. 

Just like Seidou.

Finally,  _ finally,  _ a shriek tears it’s way from his throat, raw and and without the echo he was used to in the concrete room. Along with the cry, the world snaps, and suddenly he’s somewhere new, body no longer reacting to the wounds so purposefully inflicted. Hyperventilating, frantic, his head whips around, eyes darting, shaking hands grasping at whatever he could touch. He’s in his room, in his bed. The half-ghoul sits trembling, hunched over the blankets balled in his fists, letting his horrified psyche force his chest to heave for air as if the monster that made him a monster was still here. As if he were here and as if any amount of adrenaline could save him from that man. As he choked on air and stared at his hands, he can tell from the way that the room is lighter than it should be that his kakugan is activated. Takizawa brings one hand up to his chest, grasping at the space where his ribs meet in the middle, fingers in a claw like he’s holding his body shut so his heart may not fall out. Nails dig into the skin, but it’s nothing compared to the memory of the scalpel that lingers on unbroken flesh.  _ I’m in my room, I’m fine. _

If he’s fine then why is he crying?

Slowly, as if there’s a danger here that will rip him to pieces if he makes sudden movements, he pulls the covers back over him and curls up under them completely. He doesn’t want to see, he doesn’t want to feel, the slightest hint of light, the slightest drop in temperature, or the slightest movement outside the window would be enough to make him feel like he’s dying. He already does, but at least he can do this. Seidou hid under the blood soaked blanket in the concrete room, the difference here is that it’s so normal, so safe, with so many options, that he feels so pathetic finding comfort in hiding in his bedding. The sweat clinging to his skin brings him back to the layer of grime and fluids he lived in there, he grimaces through his tears, disgusted with his body’s incessant need to produce such an awful feeling. 

If he stayed here he’d be stuck in the feeling of filth, if he gets up he’ll be paralyzed by the fear of something lurking in the dark his mind insisted was there. There was so much he feared, so many comforts he couldn’t recall, but certainly  _ something  _ could ease this feeling. Seidou choked on a sob, chest hollow and heart racing as he realized that his body and mind were begging for something that he couldn’t comprehend. There is something he wants, no,  _ needs,  _ that he can’t grasp, and this feeling isn’t going away. Cowering is the only thing he could do in the concrete room that didn’t cause himself more pain, now that he’s left, cowering is all he can do. He wants to rip out spines, he wants to kill the made while did this to him, he wants to eat dinner with his family and go back to work and just feel  _ right  _ again. It’s all been stolen from him, all that was left was hollow bones and vengeful fantasies he could never have the strength to pull off. All that was left was a husk of Seidou Takizawa that tastes blood in his mouth and can’t trust his words to come out. The nightmares aren’t stopping, they’re just turning into a terror that burrows into him like insects.

Something,  _ something,  _ there has to be something. Those ghoulish instincts screamed at him not to leave the safety of the bed, his isolated soul begged him to wake up his mom like he did when he got sick as a kid. The half-ghoul is trapped between his most basic needs, that for safety and that for comfort. He isn’t safe no matter what he does, and he isn’t leaving his last shred of dignity to crawl to his mother for some recognition that  _ someone  _ can hear him. No, every option made him feel sick. 

There’s one thing he can try, something that didn’t make him feel like he wanted to vomit as much at the suggestion.

Seidou tentatively reached out of the blanket with a trembling hand, fumbling for something on the bed stand but refusing to come out from under the safety of his covers. Soon enough he feels his phone and yanks it under with him, squinting his eyes at the mid level light that in the darkness was blinding until he could lower it as far down as it would go. It was difficult to open the device with his hands shaking so violently, but his sole focus was on getting it open, getting to his texts,  _ oh god it’s four AM, who’s even awake?  _ He was planning on texting one of the Anteiku ghouls, he needed to talk to someone, and he had hoped one of them could help him, but his need to be heard and his fear of disturbing someone clashed. It came to mind that one person might not be angry for being disturbed, one person who had plainly told him to call if he ever had concerns, one person may even be awake already. 

Who else but a traumatized bastard and an old man could be up this early?

Forcing himself to breath deeply wasn’t easy, but he had to keep his fingers steady enough to type. Very carefully, he attempted to word his deep seated terror in a way that was coherent to someone in a sound state of mind.

**S: Mr. Yoshimura I’m panicking, I don’t know what to do, is this different for ghouls? Is there a way to stop this? I’m sorry for texting so early, I don’t know what to do**

The moment it was sent, he curled in on himself further, holding his breath to try to stop his quiet sobs.  _ Pathetic, fucking pathetic _ , he thought to himself. Reading it back made him despise himself more, what a needy, stupid thing. Years ago his father would’ve yelled at him,  _ “what are you crying? I didn’t raise a fucking queer, man up and shut up.”  _ It’s been so long that the man has forgotten whatever it was he had been crying over when he was a kid, but he remembered what his father yelled at him.  _ Man up and shut up,  _ his father said,  _ and don’t cry over the phone to your fucking manager at four in the goddamned morning, _ Seidou added. For whatever reason, the hateful reminders that he shouldn’t be crying did nothing to stop the sniffling.

He felt a buzz. Confused by how soon there was a reply, the man looked back at his phone.

**Y: ITS NO TROUBLE MR. TAKIZAWA, I TOLD YOU TO CONTACT ME WHENEVER YOU NEEDED ASSISTANCE AND I'M GLAD YOU DID. YOU SAY YOU’RE PANICKING, CAN YOU DESCRIBE IT TO ME SO I CAN BETTER ASSESS YOUR SITUATION?**

How can he describe this? What is there besides exaggerations and extremes? Any other time, any other time when he was human and safe and oh so naive, he would have thought it was stupid. He used to hear about people describing their struggles with poetry and lyrics and would cringe at dramatic phrases.  _ It’s not that bad _ , he had thought.  _ Get over yourself, “soul consuming” isn’t a thing, just get it together and stop trying to get attention _ . But now as he lay cowering from a nothingness that could not be blocked, he regretted every moment he thought of himself as so high and mighty for scoffing at those words. Now that he’s living it, he knows. He knows that urgent emptiness, that crushing loneliness, that soul piercing way his mind contradicts itself in hopes to placate a body that refuses to stop shaking. He understood that if he had heard someone describe the feeling in this way just a few months ago, he would have laughed at them.  _ I was such a dickhead.  _ Melodrama doesn’t begin to describe it, he wished it was just that and not a feeling like he was teetering moments from death.

He doesn’t want  _ attention.  _ He wants everyone to look away, avert their eyes from the pitiful thing he was. Yet at the same time he didn’t think he could survive if he was ignored. That dream kept him silent, Kanou couldn’t hear him, he couldn’t hear himself,  _ please god someone hear me.  _ But if someone did, if someone was awake and willing to waste their time with him, he wouldn’t know what to say. “I had a nightmare” wouldn’t cut it. Small and childish and couldn’t convey the rot in his chest. “I feel like I’m dying” is too much, he  _ does  _ feel like he’s dying but he’d be asked to explain. He doesn’t want to explain, he doesn’t want to say anything, he just wants to  _ be _ , but not alone.

_ Someone say my name, someone look at me. _

**S: I don’t know. It’s everything at once and I don’t know what I should want. I’m safe but I’m not, I feel like there’s something and I hate it but I want someone here**

The moment he sends it he knows it doesn’t make sense. He can’t explain it, there is no explanation, there is no word for the everything and the nothing he needs like a sprouting weed reaching towards stolen sunlight. Like something grown in cracks that was never meant to exist, never meant to soak up the little water that it can touch, a wretched thing only alive because no passerbys care enough to rip it from the ground.  _ That doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry. _

**Y: HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING ANY UNPLEASANT DREAMS AND THOUGHTS?**

**S: yes**

**Y: DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE BEING WATCHED?**

The man’s eyes widen at the screen.  _ How did…?  _ It was so accurate, so oddly specific, that he was immediately suspicious. How could he know about that?

**S: yes**

**Y: DO YOU FEEL NAUSEOUS, INJURED, OR TOO WARM?**

That’s less on point

**S: no, only shaky**

**Y: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE? DOES THE IDEA OF BEING AROUND FRIENDS AND FAMILY MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE OR DOES IT SOUND PLEASANT?**

Friends and family…. His mother and sister obviously, they were his family and he loved them. There was Yoshimura and Ken, they’re safe and nice to be around, so is Hide. Koma is… easier, it’s still uncomfortable around him since he’s quite outspoken about his body count in both senses of the word. The other anteiku ghouls he wouldn’t call his friends, not yet at least. Then there’s…. 

Everything is kinder in memory. Marude’s loud rants, Shinohara’s pleasant presence, Juuzou’s stupid little whims that he would never admit to occasionally finding endearing. There was Akira’s curt nods and single word responses, there was Amon’s hard work and rare, pretty smile.

He thought about those two a lot.

**S: I want to talk to people but I’m scared that they won’t be safe. I don’t know who’s safe.**

**Y: HAVE YOU HAD ANY PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN THE LAST WEEK?**

Another thing that caught him off guard. No,not really besides just sometimes brushing against people, but that’s an odd thing to ask.

**S: no**

The little dots appear and disappear several times before his manager types out a response.

**Y: WHAT YOU'RE EXPERIENCING IS NORMAL. ALL GHOULS HAVE THIS RESPONSE, WHICH WHEN COUPLED WITH A RECENT TRAUMA CAN BE EXACERBATED. I WAS NOT SURE IF YOU WOULD DEVELOP IT BUT IT SEEMS YOU'RE SHOWING SYMPTOMS. TODAY AFTER WORK STAY LATER SO WE CAN GO ABOUT REMEDYING IT**

Once again, emotions conflict and intermix. It’s normal.  _ For monsters.  _ He’s making sense.  _ To ghouls.  _ Someone is acknowledging him.  _ Shit that’s pathetic.  _ There’s something that can be done about it.  _ Some unknown thing can be done about this unknown ghoul ailment. _

**S: What's the remedy?**

**Y: I WILL SHOW YOU WHEN IT'S TIME, I ASSURE YOU THAT IT ISN'T PAINFUL AND YOU MIGHT EVEN FIND IT ENJOYABLE, BUT UNTIL THEN IT IS BETTER THAT YOU FOCUS ON THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU. IS THERE ANYONE AT HOME WHO YOU CAN SIT WITH BEFORE WORK TO STEADY YOU?**

**S: they’re asleep**

**Y: I SEE. IF YOU DO GET A CHANCE THOUGH, TRY NOT TO BE ALONE, THAT'S WHEN IT EASIEST FOR YOUR MIND TO DRIFT**

**S: Yes sir**

**Y: THANK YOU FOR CONTACTING ME, WILL YOU BE ALRIGHT UNTIL YOU COME IN?**

Seidou takes a deep breath.  _ It’s temporary, it’s normal, it’s okay. _ He kept repeating it to himself until he was forced to let it sink in.  _ This isn’t forever, I just gotta hold on. _

**S: Yes, thanks. I’m sorry for this**

**Y: THERE IS NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR, STAY SAFE**

_ Stay safe.  _ Not “be on time” or “stop asking questions and do it” or “as long as the report’s on time I don’t care what you need to do to get it done.”  _ Stay safe.  _ His superiors at the CCG never gave any indication of caring about his well-being. Well… Amon did, he was different, just better in the ways that make him human. Irrelevant now of course.  _ If I tried to see him I’d get killed.  _ But aside from him, that whole organization would never have cared if he had a breakdown like this, and yet the damn  _ owl  _ wants him to stay safe.  _ I can stay safe, I just have to hold on _

Seidou jolts at the little scratches at the door. His animal mind raced to think of what it may be, grip tightening around the phone as he anticipated danger. Ran through possibilities and scenarios of who or what could be here until the thing made a noise, A little yappy bark. It’s just the dog..... _ I didn’t used to be this jumpy.  _ As he silently berated himself for how far he’s fallen, he suddenly feels a glimmer of hope.  _ Rocky!  _ The little dog doesn’t usually try to sleep in his room, he tends to stay with his sister. The only time the family pet had been adamant about coming in his room before was years ago in those months leading up to his dad leaving. Seidou had always figured that it was because the dog likes Seina the best and back then they had shared a room before moving, but in hindsight, maybe he just wanted to comfort whichever person needed it. Trying to help his person in the way a little Jack Russell could, what a good boy. Right now, that was the perfect thing. 

Mustering up his courage, reminding himself over and over that there’s nothing here, that all his fears of what could be lurking in his room was just from the nightmare, he emerged from the blankets. An unsteady foot on the ground, then another, he forced himself out of bed and started straight to the door, fearing whatever could manifest in his periphery. Once there, he opens it, and Rocky wastes no time scurrying in, hopping up at him with little yaps. The half-ghoul, feels himself relax slightly as he picked him up, the creature’s recognizable happiness draws his attention away from speculative enemies. Seidou creeps back to the bed and lays down, letting the dog reposition himself into a comfortable spot right against his chest. He smiles slightly and pets him, feeling a bit better now that he’s not completely alone, now that an animal at least can assure him that he’s here.

“Good boy, good boy rocky,” he whispered to the dog. The Jack Russell thumps his tail against his stomach in response. He hears him. Someone who can hear him and stay with him and not judge or ask him to explain the discord in his mind that he can’t understand. Of course the perfect solution is this little animal, and he’s so grateful for having a simple, stupid, sweet dog. His tears are more relieved than fearful, he makes himself breathe slower and deeper, making himself try to relax, at first not to startle his companion, but it soon becomes easier. Little by little the man calms down, and while the adrenal terror that woke him will not let him get back to sleep, he at least stops feeling like he’s teetering on the edge of some monumental terror. He’ll make it till the sunrise, he’ll make it till work and whatever remedy there is for whatever’s happening to him, he’ll hold on.

“Good boy rocky.”


End file.
